Possession
by Shadowlass
Summary: Spike couldn't stay dead, and he couldn't stay away. But where Spike goes, trouble always seems to follow...Post-"Chosen"; Spuffy, among other pairings.
1. Default Chapter

TITLE: Possession

AUTHOR: Shadowlass

EMAIL: shadowlass2000@yahoo.com

SUMMARY: Spike couldn't stay dead, and he couldn't stay away. But where Spike goes, trouble always seems to follow….(S/B, post-Chosen)

RATING: R

DISCLAIMER: No, I don't own BtVS, just AtS. Wait, not that either.

NOTE: Many thanks to my wonderful betas, Chris, Mezz, and sunbrae.

**Prologue**

So this was hell. Spike was surprised; he'd expected more in the way of sulfurous fumes and Ricky Martin music. The whole thing was really quite unexceptional, and as far as Spike was concerned, if you'd seen one boring cave, you'd seen them all. In fact, he—hang on, _cave? _

Spike fought off the death-induced grogginess he was enjoying and took a good look around; with clear eyes, it wasn't hard to recognize where he was. "Ah, motherfucking—"

"You are surprised, vampire?"

"Hell yes, I'm surprised. Why wouldn't I be? Thought I was rid of you a year ago," grumbled Spike, forcing his sore body to its feet as the massive demon regarded him calmly, eyes glowing green.

The demon's gash of a mouth stretched hideously, and Spike realized the thing was smiling. A chill ran through him, and he knew with a shudder than anything that amused the cave-dweller couldn't be good news for him.

"Is this a punishment?" Spike asked warily. The creature only looked at him. "You know, like Sisyphus, or Tantalus, or some other ancient twit? I'm going to be tortured by you for all eternity?"

"For what would you be punished, vampire?"

Bastard. "For a hundred and twenty years of blood and gore," Spike responded, suddenly weary. He'd worn the pendant and averted the apocalypse … well, _that_ apocalypse, Spike amended … and it wasn't enough. All those people alive because of him, and it still wasn't enough.

_Why should it be? Wasn't like you knew what would happen when you put on that shiny bauble … you just thought you'd fill in Angel's shoes, same as you always do—fill them with Buffy, with Dru, with the whole heroic martyrdom...._

"Shut up," Spike mumbled to himself.

A rumble sounded opposite him. The demon was now inspired to laugh, it seemed.

It stepped closer to him. "I give you no punishment. You met all of your challenges, and now I have given you what you asked of me."

Spike stared at him. It never paid to deal with demons; they always stung you in the end. But he'd been desperate when he decided to seek out the demon, crazed, and hadn't thought past the moment. He'd just wanted, needed, to leash himself, to protect Buffy. "Our deal was over a year ago, mate," he pointed out carefully. "I did your trials, you gave me a soul."

"You did not ask for a soul. You asked to be made what you were."

"Yeah, what I had when I was human—"

"What you were. The soul was just another trial. And now I have given you your reward. You are now as you once were. A human. Weak. Pitiful. Without defenses. The prey of any who would do you harm."

"Then why are you calling me vampire?" Spike shot back, unconvinced.

"I thought you would enjoy one last reminder of what you were," the demon said maliciously.

Spike forced himself to remain calm. "You know, I don't feel any different," he observed neutrally. "You sure you have the right of it?"

The creature grasped him with a leathery hand. "See for yourself," it said indifferently, and cast him out of the cave into the bright noon of the savannah as Spike screamed and struggled against the sunlight's burn.

***

**Chapter 1**

"It was a mistake."

Buffy didn't respond to Giles's statement. It was hard to just ignore the things her Watcher—former Watcher— told her, but she didn't have much of a choice anymore. It seemed like everything she did was wrong, a mistake, a sure step on the road to calamity, and possibly a felony as well. 

Giles hadn't gone back to England after the First Evil was defeated, which should have made her happy; he was there every day to help her, guide her, advise her … Every. Single. Day. And it quickly became clear that that although she'd been miserable when he left after Willow brought her back, she'd grown up since then. She didn't know when it happened—god knew, she didn't feel like an adult most of the time—but his frequent criticism and attempts to influence her in every little way grated. What Buffy studied, her choice of town, what she let Dawn wear? It was all wrong.

As if she could even try to lecture Dawn on clothes, Buffy thought crankily. Dawn knew what she used to wear to school; she'd just laugh at her if Buffy said Dawn's skirts were too short.

At the moment, the topic of criticism was her insistence that the Potentials—not Potentials anymore, she reminded herself, but Slayers—be allowed to return to home to their families.

Now they were all gone, across the country and across the sea, some of them. They'd been offered a choice, and while some of them had decided to stay together, none had chosen to remain with the little band from Sunnydale; they wanted to make their own way. Except Kennedy, attached as she was to Willow. The Scoobies weren't going anywhere without Willow, and that meant Kennedy came along as an accessory. A pushy, entitled accessory.

When she wasn't keeping her thoughts under control, Buffy sometimes wished Willow had fallen for Vi instead.

"It was not a mistake," Buffy said wearily. "They're just kids. They should be with their families."

"They need instruction, training," asserted Giles.

"They need their parents," corrected Buffy. "They need _lives."_

Giles sighed. It seemed that no matter how much he argued, she automatically defied him. It didn't matter what the topic was, really—she did it to spite him. There could be no other reason. It was hard for him to believe, but she was even more rebellious than she had been as a teenager. "If we had enough Watchers it would be one thing, but there are so few left. If the new Slayers aren't trained they have no chance; they have a duty, a responsibility, they are—"

"One in all the world?" asked Buffy with deceptive sweetness.

Giles subsided a little. "No, of course not."

"I was the last one."

"What?"

"I was the last one who was one in all the world. These girls will never know what that is, to be the only one—to have the weight of the world on them. And that makes me happy. The only people they're 'one in all the world' for is their families. They're not going to—nobody's going to—" Buffy broke off for a minute. "They got the basics while we were in Sunnydale; they know what it is to fight monsters and save the world. They can continue training on their own, or they can join us, but I'm not going to _make_ them do anything," she finished tightly, and pulled away from the table. 

She left the room without another word, moving to stand in the living room as she caught her breath. Nobody was going to resurrect those girls to make them do their job; no one was going to use the blunt force of _you're the only one, it's your duty to keep them in line the way the Council had attempted to control her._

No, not just the Council. Giles, too.

The new Slayers didn't have to stand alone, the way she had so often.

And now, neither did she.

They'd settled down, all the Scoobies, into a calm life in Santa Rita. Still in Southern California—Buffy didn't think she'd be able to live anywhere else; she'd always be a California girl, even if her work was done by night. What was the other choice? Patrol the beach? Good for the tan, but otherwise not very effective.

For the first time in what felt like forever, money wasn't an issue. Andrew had sold the prototype of a video game he'd created and had signed a contract for more, and he'd made a long speech, with many references to god knows what, about it being a privilege to be the "benefactor" of a superhero. Giles seemed to find the situation distasteful—_talk about a Giles word, Buffy thought to herself—but it made sense to her. Andrew reveled in the reflected glory, and he wanted to stay with them. He enjoyed a family life, he liked to say._

Sometimes she wasn't sure if that's what they were anymore. She didn't remember the last time she trusted Giles completely; she'd loved him like a father for so long, and then he'd left, and … basically acted exactly like a father. Well, she already had one of those type of fathers, and one was more than enough. 

She'd thought she was over it, the sense of betrayal she'd felt, thought it had all been water under the bridge. She'd been kidding herself; nothing was ever solved that easily, no matter how hard you hope.

She wanted to love him the way she had. Before she died, before she came back and he left. Before he tried to kill Spike.

Now Spike was gone anyway, but it had been of his own choosing, not because somebody looked at him and decided he wasn't worthy, the way Giles had. 

The way she had, so many times.

For a moment she was angry, bitterly angry, at her father, at Angel, at Riley. At Giles. They left, all of them, until she didn't know what it meant anymore when a man told her he loved her. No, that wasn't right; she knew _exactly_ what it meant, and that was why she couldn't believe Spike when he told her how he felt. When he showed her, with his blood and his body and finally his life.

No, not his life. He'd let Glory torture him to help Buffy, but when he'd died … that hadn't been for her. That had been for the world. For all the people he'd killed. For him. She didn't know _what_ it was for, but it wasn't her. Finally, he thought of something other than her.

This time she couldn't rage against being abandoned. She almost wished he hadleft her the way the others had. 

It was easier when she had someone to blame. Now, she just had regrets.

***

Those killed in the great battle against ultimate evil remained dead, and Andrew wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing.

He hadn't seen Warren or Jonathan or any of the Potentials who'd been lost in the brave fight to save the world—Amanda, for instance, or dear—dear—

Ugh. It really was hard to keep their names straight.

He paused a moment under a tree on the broad sidewalk to peer into his bag of newly purchased comic books to assure himself that the clerk at the store hadn't cheated him and stuck in a _Little Lotta instead of one of his specially ordered four-color beauties. No, everything was there, and Andrew patted the bag in contentment and continued walking._

Where was he? Oh yeah, he hadn't seen any of them. Sometimes he wished they did visit. They could talk, right? Catch up, find out what the other was doing. It was comforting, like they weren't really gone. He knew the First hadn't meant for his visits to comfort Andrew, when he'd appeared as Warren or Jonathan, but talking to them always made him feel better, unless they were telling him to kill a pig or something like that. But when they were telling him things weren't his fault, that was pretty good.

He supposed the important thing was that the world had been saved and they were all together now. Andrew and Xander and Dawn and Buffy and Giles, all living in the big house on Laurel Drive. It was nice, especially the game room with its wall of video games and its combination region one/region two DVD player, so he didn't have to wait for great shows like _The Prisoner _to be released in the U.S. Although, actually, _The Prisoner_ had already been available in region one, but it was a little out of his price range before. But it wasn't now, and that was important too, right?

And also, they didn't have Potentials sleeping underfoot anymore, and everyone had their own room. And Xander hadn't had to fix the windows once.

But sometimes Andrew, who was definitely not holding his ear against the wall so he could hear what Xander what doing—he'd promised Buffy he'd stop, and he had—sometimes he heard Xander call out to Anya in his sleep. During the day Xander bravely pretended just to be himself, all cheerful and cracking jokes, but Andrew could tell his mighty heart was breaking.

All summer Andrew had tried to cheer him up with little gifts—a box set of _The Man From Atlantis_, a mint-condition copy of issue three of _Rima, the Jungle Girl_—the best comic ever, no matter what Tucker said—and a really amazing pudding cake that took Andrew all afternoon to make. None of it seemed to work, though. Dawn seemed more excited by the cake than Xander had; at least someone besides Andrew appreciated the magic of coffee and water forming itself into pudding while baking_ inside a cake._ But even as he gave Xander the presents, he knew that nothing could alleviate his suffering. Nothing on this earth.

The others weren't always as sensitive to Xander as Andrew was. Buffy had suggested to Xander that he start dating again, and Xander said maybe her boyfriend could fix him up with his sister. Then there were some kind of unpleasant words, since Buffy didn't have a boyfriend, and Andrew had run out of the room, and when he came back they were talking about sandwiches. That night was the first time that Andrew heard Xander talking in his sleep. Talking to Anya.

He bet Xander would have done anything for a visit from the ex-vengeance demon. In the old days, Andrew might have summoned a demon who could grant wishes to help Xander out, give him a visitation or something nice like that, but he didn't do those kind of things anymore. If only he did, for Xander's sake.

But now, thinking on it, it occurred to Andrew that maybe it would be better for everyone if the dead just stayed that way. Because in front of Andrew, blocking his path, was a ghost.

It was calling his name.


	2. Two

"Get thee behind me, Satan!" screeched Andrew, flinging his arms up in front of his face, his comics flying.

"What?" said Spike in surprise.

"What?" repeated Andrew stupidly.

"For god's sake," muttered Spike. _You  never__ can do things the easy way, can you? he berated himself. __No, you always have to do things in the most unpleasant manner possible. Lose your girlfriend to your grandsire, get hardware implanted in your head, fall in love with the Slayer—the Slayer, for god's sake!—get a soul shoved back into you, and now you can't just find Buffy, no, first you have to deal with the world's oldest living virgin and his overactive imagination._

Although since Spike had regained his humanity, that probably meant _he_ was the unlucky holder of that title. Ah, even better.

Really though, it could have been worse. The demon could have resurrected him wearing one of Harris's shirts; then he would have prayed for death. Which of course he wouldn't have gotten, but it would have been one more thing to be pissed about.

"Aren't you dead?" exclaimed Andrew.

"What's it look like?" returned Spike testily.

"Well, you_ look_ alive," Andrew allowed. "But the First can do that, so how do I know you're real?"

Spike bent over, picked up one of Andrew's comic books and bounced it off the boy's chest. "Real enough for you?"

Andrew teared up. It was a miracle! Spike had somehow survived the cataclysm that had claimed the town of Sunnydale and the lives of so many valiant warriors. "How did you survive?" he asked in watery amazement. "The whole town collapsed!"

Spike rolled his eyes. Was it his imagination, or was the boy getting stupider? Was that even possible? "I didn't _survive, you git. Notice anything?" he asked sardonically._

Andrew looked at him warily. "Well, you do seem a bit taller—"

"I am not taller, I'm standing in sunlight," Spike growled.

"Oh. Then you … okay, wait, I don't know what that means."

"It means I'm human."

Andrew's eyes grew big and his mouth formed an astonished "O." Then he crumpled into a polite little pile at Spike's feet, nicely framed by his comic books.

***

Willow could tell Kennedy didn't hear her when she said goodbye. Kennedy was on the phone, talking with Giles—well, arguing—when Willow said bye in a perfectly normal, not at all hushed voice, then grabbed her jacket and hurried out the door before Kennedy could register what she was doing.

It felt kind of wrong, but being away from the fighting? Felt really, really good. And she shouldn't feel guilty about that … right?

Willow started down the sidewalk at a brisk pace. Okay, it wasn't like she could outrun Kennedy, and she wouldn't even try. But after Kennedy argued with the others, she always bitched about them, and god, Willow just wanted a little peace. She was supposed to be researching a paper for school, but she'd happily stay up a few hours later if she could have some peace _now_.

Willow wasn't sure she should even be surprised by how things were. She still marveled at the way Kennedy had pursued her the year before; everywhere Willow turned Kennedy had been there, looking at her. Smiling into her eyes, touching her hand. Willow had been a little unnerved by the attention—not because it was, you know, _attention, but because Kennedy was so … well, she was kind of Cordelia-like. Pretty and confident, a natural leader. She wasn't like anyone Willow had been involved with before. Which, considering that her "before" consisted of two people, maybe didn't mean much. _

Tara and Oz hadn't been much alike on the surface, but they were both all … wind beneath my wing-y for Willow. They were strong inside; they didn't care if anyone deferred to them, or listened to them, or even looked at them. They didn't need reassurance from anyone else. 

Kennedy wasn't like that. She was always pushing, especially Buffy. She wanted to be heard, respected. She wanted to be a leader. She hadn't wanted to wait her turn when she was a Potential, and now that she was a Slayer, she thought it was her right to butt into private talks between Buffy and Giles, and that it was okay to flare up if they didn't agree with her. Once, after a Kennedy blowup, Xander had called her Faith Lite—"all the drama, but now psychosis-free!" And for one horrifying moment, before she caught herself, Willow had started to nod. 

Thank god Kennedy had already stormed from the room. 

Sometimes Willow felt she could outline her days in the ups and downs of Kennedy's voice, soft and tender at night when they were in bed together, shrill and demanding with others during the day. She was always tender with Willow, unless they were arguing about the others.

But they couldn't stay in bed forever.

Something Buffy had said to her out of the blue during the summer popped back into her head out of nowhere: "You don't have to become involved with somebody just because they want to." Willow had asked what she meant, but Buffy had backtracked and then started babbling. Like it was just a random thought.

But now Willow was trapped with Kennedy—no, living, not trapped; no one was making her stay there, she reminded herself—while the others were together in their big comfy house, having fun all the time, together all day, all snuggling up in their jammies at bedtime and sipping cocoa. Well, okay, not cocoa, it was still warm at night, but the point was they were together, and she was across town with Kennedy, because the stress was too much to take when they were all together. Kennedy had been after her for weeks to get their own place, and finally Willow agreed. Buffy hadn't argued nearly as much as Willow wanted her to.

God, Willow wished she was there, not here.

It was ridiculous to feel trapped. Unreasonable.

So why couldn't she stop? She thought the tension would ease since Kennedy had become a Slayer and Buffy didn't have as much pressure on her anymore—didn't feel that the whole world and every one of the Potentials were relying on her. 

What a joke! They argued more and more, and even when they were alone, Willow found herself avoiding talking about Buffy or Giles or the others. Because if she didn't take Kennedy's side, it was a betrayal. So instead of being with the friends she loved, she was across town, walking on eggshells. She didn't want to hurt Kennedy.

But mostly? She didn't want to have to try anymore.

***

The thumping at the door was insistent, and Buffy hurried across the living room to open it.

Then she stopped dead, stunned by the sight of Spike standing before her, dressed in his customary attire of black jeans, black T-shirt, and duster. Spike, who'd been gone for months, whose cool flesh had been engulfed in flames even before she left him to die in the school's basement.

He'd come back. Like Angel. Like her.

"Spi—ke?" she breathed.

He stared at her, re-memorizing the fall of her hair, the glossy pink of her lips. The lines around her eyes, deeper than any 22-year-old should have. He'd thought, when she'd first told him her plan for the Potentials, that those lines would ease when she was not the only one who was chosen, but instead they were deeper.

"Hello, love," he said softly.

"Are you—real?" she asked after a moment. Didn't sound stupid at all when she said it, he thought.

"That I am." He shifted Andrew, draped across his shoulder in a fireman's hold. The kid may have been skinny, but carrying him a few blocks and then just standing there holding him was enough to make Spike's arms ache. Time was he could have hauled a big strapping man or well-fed milkmaid miles if he needed to find a good place to dispose of the body. But that was then, when he didn't have a heartbeat. Or a soul. Yeah, he was just full of humanity now; it was about ready to pour out his ears.

"Do you mind if I put the kid down?" he asked awkwardly. Buffy was still blinking at him as if she was trying to clear her eyes, and he didn't want to punctuate his exceedingly graceless re-entrance into her life by dropping the boy.

"Yeah, I'm actually conscious now," piped up Andrew. Buffy hastily moved back, and Spike swung Andrew down. The reedy blond wavered for a few moments before throwing himself down on the couch with an attitude of exhaustion. "He gave me the scare of my life!" he told Buffy with a shudder. "And not only that, he hit me with my own graphic novel! And then he—_oh my god, where are they?" he suddenly screamed, turning to Spike. "Where, where?"_

"Where's what?" protested Spike.

"My graphic novels, my graphic novels—my comic books!" he exclaimed at Spike's blank look.

Spike shrugged. "They're on the ground back where you lost it, I'd say."

"Oh! That's just—oh, forget it! I'll get them myself! Don't forget to hold dinner," Andrew exclaimed to Buffy, rushing out the front door.

Buffy managed a weak smile. "He has to rescue his babies," she told Spike.

For a moment they just looked at each other, then she stepped closer and raised a hand to touch his face gently. With wonder, the way she never had before, when he would have given everything for a kind touch from her. 

No, not _never_. She'd touched him like that at the end, in the days leading up to the big fight and his show-stopping immolation. At the end, he wasn't just a thing to her.

"It's really you," she whispered. He shut his eyes, drinking in her touch.

"In the flesh," he murmured. He didn't want to startle her, didn't want to break the fragile mood. He reached up and covered her hand with his, and she let him. For once, her flesh didn't sear him, didn't burn. Didn't cleanse.

And his didn't chill hers.

"You're—human," she realized after a long moment. "How did it happen?"

"The demon I told you about last year—that one that gave me the soul?" She nodded. "After I went up in flames, I woke up there. Thought it was the afterlife. Thought I'd be pushing boulders for all eternity, but it was just a test, the whole thing. Having the soul. Getting tortured by the First, too, I guess. He said this was what I earned."

"And you came here?" she probed softly.

Spike shrugged. "Sunnydale's even more of a hole now, I hear," he said casually. "Thought I might as well branch out. Weather's nice in California, and this seemed as good a town as any." God, he was a liar. Didn't give a shit about sunny California—as far as he was concerned, the only difference between it and yogurt was that yogurt had an actual culture. There was only one reason for him to go to Santa Rita, and it was the same reason he'd gone back to Sunnydale after his first trip to Africa.

God, he was an idiot.

And she knew it, apparently. "How'd you find me?" Buffy asked, still a little dazed. "I mean, you can't do the smelling thing anymore, right?"

"Yeah, no super-smelling sense anymore. 'Course, it never worked over distances larger than, say, Rhode Island, so it wouldn't have worked here anyway," Spike noted dryly.

"So, how'd you…?"

"I have my ways," Spike said dismissively.

"Did you ask Angel?" asked Buffy, beginning to regain her equilibrium. A few years ago—a year ago, even—she knew she wouldn't have said Angel's name so comfortably, but there was a lot of water under the bridge. Or perhaps she was becoming calloused, as she'd long suspected.

Or maybe she was just growing up.

Spike grimaced in response to her question. She'd always known how to make him jump, sometimes not in a good way. "No, I did not ask Angel," he returned a little shortly. As if he'd ever ask that lummox anything, except where he bought his clothes. Had to know where not to shop.

"Then where—"

"Your father," Spike broke in. Now it was her turn to flinch. "Called him up and told him I had something of yours."

Buffy smiled faintly. "I guess being human isn't a guarantee of truthfulness," she observed after a moment.

Spike didn't look away, and finally she glanced down. She knew what he meant. 

She always had. 

***

"So, school? How was it?"

Dawn shrugged. "It was school," she told Xander, but that was kind of a lie. She was in a private school now, thanks to Andrew, and it was so much better than public school it wasn't funny. She was enjoying her subjects for the first time in years—Buffy had said, when she'd seen the results of Dawn's first few tests, that she'd forgotten that Dawn used to be a really good student.

Okay, maybe the good student stuff was something the monks programmed into her, but she was still enjoying it. Even if the uniform sucked. Her teachers were so cool, and kids were encouraged to pursue what they were interested in, rather than just going along with the class. And the best thing was, all her school records had been destroyed when Sunnydale went bam, so she had a clean slate and her counselor hadn't lectured her once.

Xander's nice car from pre-Sunnydale destruction was gone, but he'd gotten another one, this time an SUV like her mom's. Big enough for everyone in the house, and perfect for the owner of a construction company, also thanks to Andrew. Xander couldn't do the precise hands-on work he used to, not with one eye, so Andrew had given him start-up money, and Xander found some of the guys he used to work with in Sunnydale and set up his own firm. Now he was in charge of building a new subdivision, and could take off every day at three so that he could take Dawn home. He usually came in with her, had a snack, and went right back to work, because he said he wanted the guys to see that although he was the boss, he still worked hard.

Xander parked in the driveway and went down to the sidewalk mailbox as Dawn rummaged through her purse for the key. As Dawn opened the door, she could hear the muffled sounds of the television inside, which was weird, because Buffy and Giles hardly ever watched TV. Of course, Andrew loved it, but he usually liked to watch on the big-screen in the game room, not the normal-size set in the living room. Lately he'd been yammering about putting in a home theater with a projection TV, but Dawn's new friend Sarah had one, and the remote looked like something out of "Star Trek," which—come to think of it, that would probably make Andrew extra happy.

It was time for "Melrose Place," apparently. "Oh come on, Kimberly, you can do so much better than Michael," grumbled the person on the couch. Which was Spike.

Dawn came to a dead stop and dropped her bookbag. Xander, walking slowly behind her while flipping through the mail, bumped into her and gave her a puzzled nudge. "What's the hold-up?" he prodded.

"H—h—hhh," stuttered Dawn, gesturing vaguely towards Spike.

Xander took one look and jumped. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, doesn't anyone stay dead around here?" he barked.

In the kitchen, Buffy hurriedly plated the sandwiches she'd made for Spike, who had to be hungry after returning from the dead. Dammit, dammit, she should have let him come into the kitchen with her like he'd wanted to, but she'd wanted a minute to compose herself. It wasn't like somebody came back from the dead every day. 

More like every third.

"He's fine, don't kill him," she shouted, rushing from the kitchen. Xander hadn't _seemed _to have a problem with Spike for the last few months before he died, but sometimes he reacted first and thought later. It was kind of a Scooby trait, really.

"He's alive," Buffy blurted out, skidding to a halt in the living room, where the other three stood, staring at each other. She shoved the plate at Spike and he took it automatically. "Alive, as in human. Not a vampire."

Xander and Dawn turned to Spike and stared at him, until he finally began to squirm under their inspection. Wasn't like them to look at him for so long; he was kind of used to most of them ignoring him, actually.

"He's real. Really real," Buffy assured them. "It was part of getting his soul, he just got the whole thing now. The whole human/soul thing."

The others were silent for a minute, studying him.

"That's—wow, that's just, uh—again with the wow," Xander finally said. He was probably less surprised than he should have been, but then again, maybe these things shouldn't surprise him at all anymore. "Another resurrection, huh?"

"You're real?" asked Dawn carefully, moving over next to Spike. She stood beside him, surprisingly tall, and narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "How can we tell?"

Buffy shook her head. What, Dawn thought she could stand right next to a ghost and not realize it? Or the First? She had super Slayer senses, she could tell these things. "He's corporeal, Dawn. Touch him if you don't believe me."

"Well, I might just—"

Buffy and Dawn were focusing on each other now, and Spike was staring at the two of them like they were all he wanted to see; none of them noticed Xander slipping from the room and heading up the stairs. As he started down the second floor hall he could hear an exclamation from below, followed by Spike complaining, "Bloody hell, Bit, she said touch, not pinch!"

Then he was in his room, and maybe he could get some actual answers. 

He usually wasn't home so early, and her face showed her surprise. "Anya," he asked without preamble, "did you know Spike was back?"


	3. Three

Giles had always enjoyed walking. In Bath, of course, it was necessary; much of the ancient city was inaccessible by car. He'd found when walking that he noticed things that he'd just speed by otherwise. It also provided him with a certain peace of mind, and that was something to be prized.

And yet, strolling on this fine autumn afternoon, he felt no peace. He thought about Buffy's decision to allow the new Slayers to disperse, and knew that it was dangerous. They needed training, guidance. Things only a Watcher could provide.

But at the same time, he felt an unmistakable relief that they had gone. Because, walking now beside Kennedy and listening to her constant stream of criticism, he knew that an entire city of Slayers would have driven him mad.

"No, I do not feel that opening an antique shop will take up all the time that I 'should be spending acting like a Watcher,'" he told Kennedy shortly. The girl really did put things in the most insulting manner possible. _Acting_ like a Watcher?

"I'm just trying to be careful," Kennedy insisted. Making his teeth grind.

Contrariness, he now felt sure, was inherent to a Slayer's nature. It had been bad enough, all of them together in Joyce's house, when the girls were merely Potentials; keeping such close quarters now was unimaginable. Buffy and Kennedy were at each other's throats constantly, and Giles felt less like a Watcher than a babysitter. Except, of course, for the small fact that his charges could throw him through a wall without exerting themselves.

"Thank you for your concern, but I've been balancing an outside career with Watching for a number of years now," he returned reasonably. "I've never run into any trouble with it before."

"Well, yeah, but you were a lot younger then," pointed out Kennedy.

Giles winced. Next to Kennedy, Anya had been the model of tact.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. But Anya had centuries of demonhood to insulate her from realizing the impropriety of her remarks. Kennedy had only indifference to others to excuse her, and as excuses went, that was a poor one.

Kennedy gritted her teeth. It was the same thing with all of them. Like she was running into a brick wall, a wall that had been there for years, maybe forever, and everyone knew where it was but her. They stepped around it and jumped over it, but every time Kennedy moved she smacked right into it.

They didn't like her. She didn't care, really, but it hurt Willow. She wasn't sure why Willow cared—she was just the low man on the totem pole to Buffy, a handy little tool to have around when she needed a little magic. If Willow weren't there, Buffy would have someone else take her place. They were all wrapped up in themselves, and Willow didn't realize that. Whatever friendship she'd had with them in the past seemed to have stayed in the past.

Of course, she didn't say that to Willow. She'd never say something like that to her; she loved her too much to upset her. No matter what she thought of Willow's "friends."

Kennedy had tried to convince Willow to go back home with her. Her parents would love Willow, and they could live in the artist's studio out in back; it hadn't been used in years. It was out by the tennis court, and had a gorgeous view of the ocean. There would be no tension there. No walls.

Willow said no.

So now they lived in the same town as the others, saw them every day, lived in the same house with them until Kennedy persuaded Willow to move, so that they finally had room to breathe. And still Willow disappeared when Kennedy wasn't looking, and Kennedy always knew where she'd find her.

That was where they were going now. It was where they always ended up—all roads in Santa Rita seemed to lead to the house on Laurel Drive. Like a puzzle where you always end up where you started. And they sat in there, and pretended they were all good friends, yadda yadda yadda, and nobody said anything honest to anybody else, because then things would fall apart.

"—but thank you for your solicitude," Giles concluded. She hadn't really been listening to his explanation. Why bother? She knew what he'd say. No, Kennedy. You're wrong, Kennedy. We already know how to do things, Kennedy.

They'd decided exactly how things were supposed to be done years ago, and it didn't matter what she said. It didn't even matter what she did. Things were set in stone, and they weren't changing. Willow was the only one of them who cared what Kennedy said or did, and even she would rather be with them. She'd never say that, but Kennedy could tell.

She was supposed to let Willow go, right? If you love someone, set them free, or something equally lame. The thing was, Kennedy wasn't built like that. She was a fighter. She always had been.

She'd fight to keep Willow. If she lost her, everything would seem pretty pointless—staying in town, getting bitched at by Buffy and disapproved of by Giles. Being the new Slayer on the block.

But it was more than that. Without Willow there was just no point at all.

***

"And you didn't go to hell?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "I already told you that, Snacksize."

"So it was just a cave?"

Spike nodded, exchanging a glance with Buffy. Dawn was like a dog with a bone.

"How do you know it wasn't a cave in hell?"

"He said he wasn't in hell, Dawn," cut off Buffy, tired of Dawn's cross-examination. Spike had adjusted to being alive before he found them, more or less, but he still had to get used to being back in the fold. "Let him eat in peace."

Spike grimaced and took a stab at eating the sandwiches Buffy had made, although he didn't feel a bit hungry. He really shouldn't be surprised by Niblet's behavior, but he hadn't given a thought to his reception. Except from Buffy, of course. Dawn hadn't welcomed him with open arms, but then she hadn't been particularly warm since he tried to rape her sister. 

He wasn't really in a position to complain.

The thing was, he had no idea how to get past it. Oddly enough, she hadn't found Crazy Spike endearing the previous year, and once Spike left the school basement he'd been wrapped up in his newly-acquired guilt. And Buffy, yes. Went without saying, didn't it?

God, he really was a liar. He didn't just let the Bit down by attacking Buffy; he'd been letting her down for months before that. It was like he'd forgotten about her, about everything other than Buffy. He'd been so absorbed in Buffy—back from the dead, and no longer hating him—that he'd barely given Dawn a thought. He'd searched for her when she went missing or got herself into a scrape, sure, but their Little Bit/Big Bad sessions were over. They didn't hang out anymore, didn't talk. Spike had only gone to the house on Revello to see Buffy, to hear her voice, to try to imagine there was a little spark in her eyes when she looked at him.

Dawn had just been somebody else in the room.

"It's good," Spike mumbled around a mouthful of shaved ham and bread, feeling guilty. Dawn cast him a look of distaste and shuddered, as if he didn't know she took bites out of chocolates and put them back in the box until she found a filling she liked.

He was relieved when the door swung open and Andrew came in, clutching his bag of comics to his chest. "They were all there," he announced in relief. "I can't believe nobody took them!"

He paused for a moment and took in the plate of sandwiches on the coffee table. "I thought you were going to hold dinner!" he protested.

"It's just a snack. A returned-from-the-dead snack," Buffy assured him. On the other side of Spike, Dawn snorted.

"Oh. Okay. You do know that, um, it's almost five," Andrew pointed out. Buffy looked at him blankly. "We are going to eat tonight, aren't we?"

"Oh. Yeah, we'll just order Chinese," said Buffy.

"Can we have orange chicken?" asked Andrew hopefully. Like he didn't already have it twice a week.

"Sure."

"And mu shu pork?"

"Yeah."

"Ooh, and sizzling rice soup?"

"Hey, can we get some Tsing-Tsao?" put in Spike, perking up a bit. "Haven't had that in an age."

Dawn looked at them in amazement. Spike had come back from the dead and they were all just acting like it was nothing! Talking about dinner, like that was really important! Instead of questioning Spike or hitting the books, they were arguing about whether to get spring rolls or paper-wrapped chicken!

And they were forgetting how much she loved potstickers! "Potstickers," she blurted out. They all turned to look at her. "Um, can we get potstickers? Two orders of them?" She never got more than one measly potsticker if they only got one order.

Buffy smiled. "Sure, Dawn."

Dawn had no idea why she felt more cheerful; it was just food. Was she becoming cynical? Or was she just becoming used to people returning from the dead?

Either way, it felt like progress.

***

She shouldn't just walk in, right? It wasn't her home anymore. Buffy hadn't asked for the key back or anything, but she still didn't belong there. So she really should ring the doorbell. Or knock! Because doorbells sound so harsh. Knocking was less aggressive. Good. Knocking.

Of course, she wasn't expecting Spike to open the door.

"Hey, Will," he said absently, glancing over his shoulder at Andrew, who was still yammering on about the cancellation of _Farscape. Or maybe __Babylon__ 5, Spike hadn't really been listening._

Willow gasped and jumped backwards, clutching the Splexis charm she wore as a pendant and muttering an incantation against evil spirits.

"You coming in?" Spike asked, opening the door wider and ignoring Willow's little display. Couldn't really blame her for being surprised, although the incantation she was muttering sounded like pure crap to him; he doubted it would roust a fruit fly.

"It's okay, Willow," called Andrew. "It's just Spike back from the dead!"

Willow peered past Spike at Andrew and relaxed a little; Spike hadn't killed the others, apparently. She slipped past him, still tense. He _looked all right, but she'd learned her lesson about resurrections._

"It's not like it's a big deal," pointed out Andrew, who'd absorbed much Scooby history while living with them. "I mean, do you know anyone who's stayed dead?"

Spike stopped breathing for a moment when he saw the look on Willow's face. Yeah, she could think of someone who hadn't come back.

"Wh-what happened?" asked Willow after a long moment.

"Demon brought me back," Spike answered succinctly.

Willow frowned. "Why would he do that? Are you doing his bidding?"

"Dunno. Does his bidding include eating ham sandwiches?"

Willow blinked. "Well, that—that would be kind of an odd bidding," she admitted. "So why'd he bring you back?"

"It was part of him getting his soul," answered Buffy, coming out of the kitchen with Dawn trailing after her. Buffy had gone ahead and ordered dinner to placate Andrew, who had a morbid fear of not being fed in a timely fashion.

Dawn had changed out of her school gear, and looked more like herself now, Spike thought. If she and Spike were on better terms, he would have teased her about her prissy uniform. Although come to think of it, that prissy outfit would look pretty hot on Buffy. Maybe he could mention it to her sometime.

Eh, if he was lucky. Wasn't precisely throwing her arms around him and proclaiming him her great love returned from the dead, was she? And why should she? They'd been together and he'd tried everything to comfort her, to make her forget heaven, but only ended up making her feel worse. Then later she felt sorry for him, all scurrying around the basement living off rats, mad from his soul, mad from the First. 

She only told him she loved him out of pity. Out of kindness.

_Bollocks_, he thought suddenly. Like Buffy ever said anything she didn't mean. She  meant it when she told him she loved him, just like she meant it when she told him he was a thing and couldn't love. She was wrong about that one, but said what she thought. Didn't give a damn about how what she said made other people feel; that's why they kicked his girl out of her own house, because she wouldn't pretend for anyone. Not for the Potentials, not for her Watcher, and not for him. Like_ hell she didn't mean it._

Telling her she didn't mean it had hurt a damn sight worse than the whole burning to death thing. That hurt for a minute. Well, more than a minute, but it was still transient. Refusing something he'd wanted for years? Wanted so much he would have killed for it, wanted so much he changed everything he was? That was world-class hurt.

But he hadn't wanted her to bury herself mourning him. He wanted her to be free.

"How long's he been here?" asked Willow, still looking startled. Addressing the question to Buffy, not Spike. Bloody Scoobies, always acting like he was too stupid or too insignificant to talk to unless they wanted him to do them a favor. Hell if they ever thanked him, either.

"Just an hour or so. He came in with—"

The door opened suddenly, and Giles walked in, Kennedy trailing after him. She was talking to Giles, but he wasn't paying attention to her. He'd come to a dead stop, and was staring at Spike, his face unreadable.

Then he turned to Willow and whispered, "What have you done?"


	4. Four

"Me? No! I—I didn't do anything," babbled Willow.

Giles continued to stare at her, unconvinced.

"I swear! I just came in and he was here," Willow insisted.

Before Giles could respond, Kennedy flared up. "How can you say that to her? You know she'd never do anything like that—Willow is more careful than _anyone!_"

The silence in the room was painful.

"What?" Kennedy demanded after a moment. 

"Honey, no," whispered Willow faintly, color staining her cheeks.

"No, what? That was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!"

"You know that's—you know that's not true, I've told you—"

"That was a long time ago that you abused magic—and besides, bringing back the dead—"

"Is actually been there, done that," observed Xander with grim humor as he came down the stairs.

Kennedy squinted up at him in disbelief. "What? Come on, you can't tell me that—"

"Not now," said Willow, her voice gaining strength.

"What? I just—"

"We'll talk about it later," said Willow quickly, although she knew talking would be useless. She'd told Kennedy, again and again, how badly she'd misused magic, but it never seemed to register. Kennedy patronized her and acted like she knew better, and she didn't know anything. She thought that when Willow was trying to get Buffy back through the portal that the Slayer artifacts had opened, and had slapped a hand against Kennedy and Anya to absorb a little of their energy, that was as bad as it got. And that was _nothing. But if Kennedy didn't see things for herself, she didn't believe them._

It wasn't going to work, Willow thought suddenly. It. _Them_. They weren't going to work through anything, and it didn't matter how well she explained things to Kennedy. They weren't going to be together in a year; they wouldn't even be together in a month. They hadn't broken up yet, but it was over.

But Willow could tell, from the frustrated expression on Kennedy's face, that she hadn't realized that. It was going to be a complete shock to her.

Willow'd never ended a relationship. They left her, Oz and Tara. They left her twice, both of them, and ripped her heart out each time. Willow wasn't the kind to get rid of the people she loved; she'd do whatever she had to in order to hold onto them. That was why Tara had left her, the first time. The time she hadn't left on a gurney. Because Willow could feel her pulling away and wiped Tara's mind to make her stay. It was wrong, Tara told her later. A violation. 

Willow would have done it again if it would have brought Tara back to her.

She'd driven away Tara, and she'd lost Oz. Kennedy she would have to give away.

***

It was not a comfortable dinner, Spike thought, though he really should have been used to that. Although Bit seemed happy enough as she stuffed her face with potstickers. Personally, he thought the slimy things were overrated. The garlic pork, though? Brilliant. He thought he might switch to an all-garlic diet. Had a few years to make up for.

"How long have you been in town, Spike?" Giles asked coolly. All protective papa, Spike thought dryly. Although the man seemed to pick and choose when to hover protectively, and when to be somewhere else entirely. Like, say, another continent.

Spike shrugged. "Few hours."

"What made you decide to come to Santa Rita?"

"Seemed as good a place as any," Spike said casually. Pissant knew perfectly well why he'd come; he just wanted to see Spike squirm. As if he'd ever give Rupert the satisfaction.

Giles studied him. Buffy had been involved with this … creature. She'd told him so herself. If she hadn't told him, Giles would never have believed it; it was beyond reckoning, Buffy with an insolent juvenile delinquent like William the Bloody. They'd never discussed the topic further, because it wasn't worth mentioning. Spike was behind them.

But then a few months later, Spike was ensconced in her house, and it was only he who shared her confidences. Buffy had become responsible and businesslike, as Giles had always urged her to be, but at her side was her vampire of the moment. The one who eschewed duty and goodness, who lived only for the fight.

He was like the unliving embodiment of all that Giles had turned his back on—youthful rebellion, unrestrained passion, joy in destruction. Nihilism. The things Giles had rejected when he left behind Ripper. He'd tried to bring Spike out of the dark, the way he had left the dark so many years before, and Spike had laughed at the idea. The chip in his head was not an opportunity, he said. It was a curse. He had no desire to do good.

He didn't change his mind until he imagined himself in love with Buffy.

"Where are you staying?"

Spike shrugged.

"How long are you staying?"

Another shrug.

"When do you—"

"For god's sake, stop cross-examining him," Buffy exclaimed, managing with some effort to hold on to her temper.

Giles looked at her in irritation. "I was doing nothing of the sort," he said in annoyance.

"Sure. Pass the mu shu," she said to Dawn.

Dawn passed the cardboard container without a word. Beside her Andrew stirred. "We have a spare room—actually, we have a bunch of spare rooms," he offered. "You can stay here."

Across the table Giles choked. "Are you okay, Mr. Giles?" asked Andrew, worried. "You didn't eat one of those dried chiles, did you?"

"No, Andrew, thank you," said Giles shortly, glancing at Buffy to gauge her reaction to the invitation. He couldn't help noticing that Spike was doing the same.

They were both disappointed. Buffy didn't look up as she spread hoisin sauce on her Mandarin pancake and shoveled a healthy amount of pork and vegetables on top.

Finally she glanced up. "That's a good idea," she said calmly. "No reason to go to a hotel."

Andrew perked up. "Oh, good! It's like old times," he said happily. "Except for about three dozen Potentials and—" Andrew broke off abruptly. He always tried not to mention Anya, to spare Xander the pain of hearing his lost love's name.

Spike forked up the last of his slightly greasy chow mein and started on his ginger-garlic chicken—ugh. Foul combination, he thought. _Heh, fowl_. 

"So do you all live here?" he asked, indicating the big house with a wave of his hand. It was strange to think of Buffy living in such a manse, after the cozy home Joyce had made for her girls and the way Buffy'd had to fight to keep the place. Working herself half-dead at that grease pit, then coming to him for comfort, sticky and stinking, knowing he wouldn't turn her away. Knowing the only thing that mattered to him was that she was there, even if part of her, the part he loved best, wished she wasn't.

"Yeah, all of us," replied Buffy automatically before thinking. No, not quite true, was it? "Everybody but Will," she corrected herself. "And Kennedy."

"You birds got your own place?" Spike asked, turning to Willow. He was a little surprised when she nodded. Seemed a little peculiar to him, Andrew living with Buffy while Willow lived elsewhere. Like something out of Bizarro World.

"I'm kind of like the new Willow," Andrew piped up helpfully, as if he'd read Spike's mind.

The other turned to stare at him. Andrew regarded them blankly for a minute before deflating a little and holding up his pork bun. "Hey, round," he observed weakly.

"It's okay, Andrew, we know what you meant," said Xander kindly. Andrew smiled at him gratefully. Xander was the _best_; Andrew didn't know what he'd do without him.

Xander turned to Spike. "So, how you enjoying the whole—breathing thing?"

"It's, uh, not bad," admitted Spike cautiously. He wasn't really sure where he stood with Xander, who'd gone from trying to kill him to treating him pretty decently before his whole fiery death thing.

Admittedly, Spike had tried to kill him one or twelve times, so it wasn't like Xander didn't have provocation. Still, a man liked to know where he stood, right? Preferably not under the blade of an axe.

"What was that?" said Giles sharply.

"'Not bad?'" repeated Spike.

"About breathing," Giles rapped out.

"Oh, that. He's alive," said Buffy, as if the explanation made perfect sense.

"Alive? As in alive alive?" said Willow in surprise.

"Yeah, that kind of alive," agreed Spike dryly. Scary to think she was the brains of the group, really.

"And how did this happen?" demanded Giles, studying Spike.

"Demon that gave me my soul brought me back," answered Spike succinctly.

"Why?"

"Dunno."

"Anya would say it was a gift with purchase," observed Xander with distant amusement. Willow looked at him for a moment and returned his smile encouragingly. Xander seldom mentioned Anya; it was good that he was beginning to refer to her now … right?

Giles ignored him. "And you have no idea why this demon brought you back and made you human?"

"He said it was what he'd agreed to when I got my soul, and he was fulfilling his end of the deal," Spike said shortly.

Giles simmered. That was the most singularly half-assed explanation he'd ever heard in his life. "That doesn't really sound like the entire story," he pointed out.

Spike shrugged. "It's all I know."

"I'm sure that's true," Giles muttered under his breath. Then he added, louder, "I didn't hear much about this demon last year."

"Didn't seem very interested, mate," Spike returned bluntly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Buffy stir, and knew she was uncomfortable with the conversation.

"Why are you so surprised that he's human?" asked Kennedy. "I mean, he was toast, so why would he be brought back as a vampire? That would pretty much defeat the purpose of being brought to _life."_

Nobody answered for a minute. Finally Willow stepped in. "Well, when Angel came back, he was still a vampire," she pointed out a little gingerly. She could hear Spike snort at the mention of Angel's name.

"Who's Angel?" asked Kennedy, frowning.

"Great git who needs a twelve-step program for his hair gel problem," muttered Spike. 

Across the table, Xander smothered a laugh. Okay, he'd never liked Spike, but there was nothing like mutual loathing of an acquaintance to bring the snark; he could listen to jokes about Sir Broods-a-Lot's hair all day. And possibly his big heavy brow—that was a whole area of big happy fun waiting to happen. 

"He's the vampire Buffy dated before Spike," Dawn answered serenely, earning a glare from her sister.

"You dated_ two_ vampires?" blurted out Kennedy. "Were you a Slayer then, too?"

"Well … yeah. I mean, how often do you meet vampires if you aren't a Slayer? Or at least Slayer-adjacent. Or about to be killed, of course," Buffy amended.

Kennedy turned to Giles. "And what were you doing?"

"I was there," he defended.

"Doing what?" she demanded. "It sure doesn't sound like you were following the Watcher's Handbook!"

"Hey, Giles was a good Watcher," protested Buffy. "In fact, he—wait, Watchers have a handbook?"

"I beg your pardon," Giles snapped. "_Was?"_

"That's not what I meant," Buffy said after a minute. Giles didn't respond, and an uncomfortable silence followed.

_Ah, more enjoyable silence_, thought Spike. _Nothing like silence to make you wish you were still dead, or at least heavily sedated._

He decided to help Buffy out. "Nice place you've got here," he told her.

To his surprise, Dawn snickered. Spike cocked one brow. "I heard you say that before," she told him.

"What?" said Buffy and Spike together. They looked at each other, and Buffy smiled a little.

"The first time you came by our house with Buffy, when the police were looking for her—you were in the living room with Mom, and you said, 'Nice place'."

"Well—I don't remember—" Spike began, face heating a little.

"You're blushing!" exclaimed Dawn, pointing to the flush crawling up Spike's face.

"I was just being polite," Spike mumbled. "What'd you want me to say? 'Too many windows for my taste?'"

"Yes, very polite for a vampire," agreed Buffy dryly, although she didn't recall the remark at all. He must have made it when she'd called the hospital to check on Willow, but she didn't really remember much of the non-essential chatter. Except, inexplicably, she had a clear memory of him telling her mom that Buffy played the … triangle?

"Wait a minute," Buffy said to Dawn. "You weren't supposed to be listening!"

The mood at the table began to lighten, and tongues slowly began to loosen. Only Giles remained silent as the young people began to tease each other.

Looking at them talk and laugh, he envied them their ease. They had youth's gift of taking things lightly, and it had been years since he'd felt that. It had begun to leave him years before, after the involvement with Eyghon and Randall's subsequent death. Jenny's murder had only increased it.

When Buffy leapt from the tower, the last bit of his youth had died. Even her return couldn't spark it back to life.

He watched them at the table, and they seemed impossibly young, all of them. Even Spike, the eldest of them. Maybe him most of all.

That wasn't right. It wasn't the way of things, the young dying before the old. Tara dead, and so many Potentials, and their Watchers, and still Spike walked the earth. It was outside of the natural order. Obscene.

And something inside Giles told him that nothing good could come of having Spike back with them. Nothing at all.

***

They were really, really loud, and Dawn wished she had earplugs. Everyone else could sleep in late the next day if they wanted, but Dawn had school, and why couldn't they be quiet? 

Andrew was playing video games in bed, which he wasn't supposed to do, and Xander was talking to himself or had the TV on. It seemed like it took forever for everyone to quiet down, but finally Dawn fell asleep. It was a deep, dreamless sleep, and she wasn't sure what woke her up hours later. A noise? She was still for moment, heard nothing, and then relaxed, eager to drift off again. At least everyone was quiet now, she thought groggily.

Then she turned over in bed, and saw him. He was sitting on the chair closest the bed, watching her. 

Dawn managed not to jump. "What are you doing here?" she asked, unnerved.

Spike leaned in closer and smiled. It wasn't a nice smile, and she shivered.

Down the hall, Xander jerked out of a deep sleep. Something was wrong, he just wasn't sure what. And then there it was again—Dawn screaming. Not like the capable young woman she was becoming, but terrified. Helpless.

It made Xander's blood run cold. 


	5. Five

Xander rushed into Dawn's room, a sword clenched in his hand. "What? What is it?" he demanded, flipping on the light and seeing Dawn sitting up in bed, pale and shaking.

"He was here—he was here," she gasped.

"Who?"

"Spike!"

Xander swung around, tensing. The door was still ajar from his hurried entrance, and the window was closed.

The room was empty. 

And Dawn … Dawn, who sometimes imagined giant spiders on her ceiling and mice nibbling in the walls, was alone. Looking frightened, but not terribly awake, as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Xander asked carefully. At her nod he relaxed his sword arm and sat down on the edge of the bed. "What happened, Dawn?"

"He …_ looked at me," said Dawn in lingering horror, hiking her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. Xander released the sword entirely to rub Dawn's back and murmur soothingly. Dawn's eyes darted around the room, still searching, still panicked._

A year before, Xander would have jumped on the incident like a beagle on a Snausage—_pit bull_, he corrected himself, _pit bull on a Snausage_—but now it just seemed odd. Spike, that dangerous, ungrateful twerp, had been so quiet after Buffy took him out of the school's basement. Helpful. Harmless. Except, of course, for the time he decided to beat the crap out of Faith for kicking Buffy out of her own house, which hadn't been harmless or helpful or anything good, but since Faith _had tried to strangle Xander, he wasn't going to hold that one against Spike._

"What do you mean, looked? Was he, you know … all bumpy in the forehead?" He knew Spike wasn't supposed to be able to do that anymore, but hell, what did he know? Maybe vampires who were made human again had some sort of weird hybrid mutant power thing going on, and _man, he had to stop hanging around Andrew so much._

Dawn shook her head, heart racing. She felt almost paralyzed. Like if she didn't move, she could become so still and small that she'd be safe.

Of course, growing up in Sunnydale had taught her that actually never worked.

Here, in Santa Rita, she'd thought she was safe. No Hellmouth, no Glory, no monster-of-the-week. No, here all she had to be afraid of was someone she used to trust. To love. Why did he do it? Rotten disgusting _creep!_

"Dawn?"

Dawn looked up at Xander's prompting. "He had this look on his face … like I was a sandwich, and he hadn't eaten in days," she said, voice quavering. "And then he said, 'I've been waiting years for this,' and started to unbutton his shirt."

Xander was silent for a moment as he absorbed her words, then surged to his feet. "Where'd he go?" Xander asked coldly, sword in his hand. He'd missed before, when he'd seen Spike with Anya, but this time his aim would be true.

There was a sound in the hall, and Buffy rushed in. "What is it, what's wrong?"

"Spike," grated Xander.

"Spike _what?_" said Buffy.

"He tried to—" Xander broke off as Spike ran into the room, slightly winded. "You bastard," Xander gritted, raising the sword and starting for Spike.

Buffy grabbed him, her hand at his wrist. "What the hell's this about?" she demanded.

"Your boyfriend here was threatening Dawn, that's what," Xander snapped, jerking his head in Spike's direction.

Buffy and Spike exchanged a look, then Buffy turned back to Xander and shook her head. "That's impossible," she told him flatly. Behind her—behind Spike—she could hear dull footfalls and knew that the rear guard, Giles and Andrew, had arrived.

"Impossible how? Because he has a soul? Because he's human now? Because you say so?"

"Because he was with me," Buffy replied softly.

***

Xander looked uncomfortably at Spike across the dining room table and shifted a little in his seat. Buffy had sent the two of them away after the initial confusion had died down, and it was established that Spike was otherwise occupied.

Andrew had sought comfort from several notably loud video games.

"So you two were … down here talking?" Xander asked, studiously polite.

Spike nodded, then caught himself. "Well, actually—" he began, and Xander cut him a sharp look. "—we were in the living room," Spike finished.

Xander let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

They both snapped their heads up when Buffy walking into the room.

"Is she settled down?" asked Spike.

"Finally," she sighed. "The promise of taking tomorrow off school can solve any problem."

Spike watched her closely as she sank down on the couch. "So what do you think it was?"

"I think it was a big shock seeing you, and then I think she ate enough potstickers to give her nightmares," said Buffy dryly.

Spike didn't look convinced. "Nightmares? You sure that's all it was?"

"What else would it be?"

"Could be about anything, I suppose," Spike admitted. "But how often do these things turn out to be nothing?"

To his surprise, Buffy smiled. "We're not in Kansas anymore, Spike," she told him. "Well okay, we were never in _Kansas exactly, but this isn't the Hellmouth. This is a perfectly normal town, not ground zero for demonic activity."_

"Yeah, that's what they say about Fresno, I hear," snorted Spike.

"Fresno?"

"Oh, nothing," Spike dismissed innocently.

Buffy glared at him. Becoming human hadn't made him notably more serious.

"So what do_ you_ think it was?" she demanded.

Xander watched the two of them. Neither of them, preoccupied with their conversation, paid him any attention. At the moment, he found that a relief. He couldn't tell them anything, and now he only had more questions.

Spike shrugged at Buffy's question. "Could be anything. Incubus—"

"The band?" asked Buffy in surprise.

"No, not the band," Spike said dryly. "Nasty little buggers that, um, take advantage of girls while they're asleep."

"Spike, you know perfectly well that incubi are a myth," said Giles, walking into the room wearily. It wasn't really surprising that as soon as Spike returned, trouble began; indeed, it would have been astonishing otherwise. Spike might never have managed evil on the scale of Angelus, or genuine repentance like Angel, but at simple troublemaking, he was without peer.

After a moment Giles corrected himself. Spike had, by the testimony of Buffy and the other Slayers, willingly sacrificed himself to save the world. It almost pained Giles to think it, but Spike had saved the world.

And he had also killed two Slayers, and countless others. The restrictions the chip had placed upon Spike had lulled Giles into dismissing the scope of his evil—a dangerous mistake. Spike may not have indulged in the Grand Guignol tortures of Angelus, but he was—had been—a legend. He had earned the name William the Bloody, earned it with the lives of the innocent.

"The hell they are," Spike insisted, drawing Giles back to the conversation.

"So they take advantage and then leave?" Buffy asked impatiently.

"They impregnate the women," Spike scowled. Didn't like the thought of one of them bothering Niblet. "That's how they reproduce."

"Impregnate!" exclaimed Buffy. "And one of these was after Dawn?"

"I don't know. Like I said, could have been anything."

"Including some things that actually exist," said Giles dryly. "Such as Traylor demons."

"What do _they_ do?" asked Buffy.

Giles thought for a moment, trying to dredge up long-buried knowledge. "I'll have to check my books, but as I recall, upon making physical contact with the victim, they take up residence in their body as a … well, a parasite."

"Parasite?" exclaimed Buffy in horror. Every option was worse than the one before it. Impregnate Dawn? Live in her as a parasite? God! "Wait, how'd these things look like Spike? They can do that? Look like whoever they want?"

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "They need to find a form the victim is familiar with, to ensure that she will allow them close enough to complete their attack. Demons can be highly adaptable. With so specialized a method of attack, they need acceptable camouflage."

"Why me?" Spike asked suddenly.

The others turned to look at him. "I'm not getting the feeling that Dawn feels all warm and fuzzy towards me right now, so why me and not one of you?" he said, jerking his chin towards Xander and Giles.

"Or Andrew," muttered Xander absently. The others looked at him curiously and after a moment he added, "I mean, assuming there's actually a demon delusional enough to imagine Andrew in a girl's bedroom."

Buffy shrugged. "She had a crush on you," she said to Spike.

Spike brightened at the news. "She did? When?" he asked, evidently pleased.

"Settle down there, fella. She had a crush on me first," Xander told him. "She just decided to lower her sights a little. Okay, a _lot."_

Spike's face fell, and Buffy giggled at him. 

Xander didn't laugh, but he did smile. It might have been after midnight, and he had work in the morning, but it was never too late to enjoy Spike being disappointed.

Giles frowned at Spike. Was he onto something? Or was the vampire (_no, not vampire_) simply indulging his considerable ego?

"The girl was refining her taste," Spike argued.

Yes, his ego _was_ healthy, wasn't it?

"Excuse me, her tastes were already highly refined," returned Xander, affronted.

"Sure, refined. You were right up there with the Backstreet Boys. Same haircut, even."

"Hey, I did _not_—"

Giles closed his eyes and ignored the byplay.

Maybe Buffy was right. Maybe it had just been a dream.

Maybe not.

***

Giles remained downstairs long after the others had retired. He'd moved to his library, a large room tastefully decorated in dark tones and lined with his books. The largest collection of mystical texts anywhere in the world now that the Council was no more, no matter what Wesley said about the collection at Wolfram & Hart.

What had awakened Dawn was no bad dream, he felt sure. And whatever it was, he was certain it would reappear. Not that night—it had been surprised; clearly it wanted to catch them unawares, or it wouldn't have approached Dawn as she slept. Nobody in the house would sleep soundly that night, too keyed up and cautious from the incident. But it would return. Eventually.

Spike there for only a few hours, and already the house was in a panic. Perhaps it wasn't fair to blame him. Perhaps.

Giles sighed. He wished he could talk to Olivia, but they'd drifted apart; he hadn't to her spoken in ages. Nothing was as it should be; everything was so fragmented, their lives no more stable than they had been on the Hellmouth. Like they were in a holding pattern.

No, not that exactly. It was as if they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. The battle that had destroyed Sunnydale had not set them free as they had all hoped—especially Buffy, he knew. She still patrolled, she and Dawn still bickered, she and Giles still looked at each other across a gulf. The only real difference was the zip code. And now, again, horrors sought them out.

Giles glanced down at the ancient text in front of him with atypical disinterest. It was a beautiful specimen, hand-scribed in a monastery in Italy. It had been found still-open in the scriptorium by pilgrims hoping to view the femur of Santa Lucia, the prized relic of the place, only to find the monastery deserted. The entire order had fallen, one by one, when the Black Death unfurled.

Surely it was natural that men, so isolated from women, from their families, from what anyone else would consider normal, would create fantastical images. Even the letters were so embellished as to be considered art. The images in the text could enthrall, but they had also been known to chill Giles to his marrow. Never so much as now, as the twining snakes that formed the first letter on the page twitched, and then began to writhe.

Giles blinked and the page was still, the movement merely a trick of the light.

Giles shook his head and shut the book. It was undoubtedly time to turn in. 

It had been a long day, and he was anxious to leave it behind.


	6. Six

Buffy wasn't worried about whatever it was that had happened in Dawn's room—not at the moment. It seemed wrong not to worry about it—like she was being a bad sister—but long experience had taught her that lying awake worrying did _nothing_.

They'd deal with it in the morning. All of them, Willow and Buffy and Xander and Giles. And Spike, too. For the moment Dawn was safe, and Buffy could relax and sleep. 

Or not.

The house was quiet, and Buffy was alone. She was in her big shiny room, which had been decorated by an interior designer, and unlike her room at home—her room in Sunnydale, all vacant and ashy and hole-in-the-groundy—it didn't have posters of New Kids on the Block, or butterflies, or even Mr. Gordo, whom she'd neglected to pack. He'd been left in her little girl room with all the other reminders of childhood. With all her everything. All she had left of that life were a few pictures of her mom, her claddagh ring, and her "Class Protector" umbrella. Well, and a change of clothes and a pair of kick-ass boots. She _did need her butt-kicking boots. One pair just wasn't enough._

She'd thought about packing her yearbooks, and her crown from the prom at Hemery, and the volume of poetry Angel gave her, and realized that it was all too much. She would have been hauling a suitcase, not traveling light with a backpack.

They'd all left Sunnydale traveling light.

At the back of her closet was a duffel bag with a few things of Spike's. He'd packed it before the big battle; they all packed a small bag or a backpack. They hadn't known the town was going to collapse—they hadn't known _what_ was going to happen—but they wanted to be careful. Just in case they weren't all bitten, broken, or incinerated, it would be nice to have a change of clothes, right?

When they'd finally stopped at a fleabag motel, there were far more bags than survivors—a reminder of the ones who hadn't made it out of Sunnydale. Xander had kept Anya's bag, of course, and Giles had said they should send the Slayers' things to their families. Their bags, accompanied by polite little notes telling them their daughters were dead.

She was going to take Spike's bag, of course. She couldn't just leave it there, like no one cared. It was cruel, and he deserved better.

And it would have been a lie. She cared. She'd fought it for months—years—but she cared. She admitted as much to Angel. Hell, she'd told _Spike, even if he didn't believe her._

Before she'd made a move towards it Spike's bag, Xander just handed it to her. Like that. Like it was nothing. Like it was assumed.

Xander had grown up. She didn't know when it had happened, but he was an amazing man. He'd always been special—loyal, brave. And when he handed her the bag, Buffy realized he'd gone right past her and become an adult.

She envied him.

She wasn't an adult yet, she knew. She made excuses. She looked for hiding places. She gave orders and pretended she knew what she was doing.

She made promises about cookie dough and baking and giving her time and blah blah blabbity blah, because it was easier than saying goodbye to a dream. It was easier than wondering why her dreams, at twenty-two, were different than they had been at sixteen. When she'd fallen in love with Angel, she was young. Naïve. A child. She'd hardly lived, and hadn't died.

Okay, _once_. She'd died once, but that one barely counted, right?

She'd been soft and hopeful and romantic. Of course she loved Angel, of course. He was dark and handsome and suave. He gave her deep looks that suggested so much, and told her only enough to make her want more. He was mysterious, a cipher.

She was just too damn old to want a cipher anymore.

Spike had never been a cipher. Before his soul, Spike could barely keep his mouth shut for three minutes at a time. _I love you, I need you, I dream about you. I killed the head of the Larquor Clan on a dare, and didn't even break a sweat. Billy Idol stole his look from me, miserable piker. And his version of "Mony Mony" bites, the sell-out. I knew the fellow who invented hot wings, and I drank him when he messed with the recipe. Fresh thyme, my ass. Once, in bed, she'd clapped a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. He didn't pull back, but she'd seen his eyes flare, and then dim._

God, she couldn't even listen to him, could she? Just wanted him to do what he was supposed to and keep his mouth shut.

Suddenly Buffy hated herself. _More than usual, she amended._

She should bring it to him, right? Give him his stuff. He'd want it, since he only had the clothes on his back now. Not that there was ever a lot of variety in his wardrobe, but he could at least change. And go through his stuff. Books, pictures, letters. He should have it. She should give it to him right now, and—_god, she was pathetic. Who did she think she was fooling? __"Here, Spike, I thought you couldn't wait five hours for your bag. By the way, can I come in?"_

It was ridiculous, him in the room across the hall. That wasn't where he wanted to be—right? He always wanted to be with her. It made him happy. She wasn't sure when it started making her happy, too.

No, that wasn't right, she knew exactly. It was when she couldn't stand to be around any of the rest of them. When she'd come back and wished she hadn't, and everybody looked at her with expectation. Except Spike. But then Riley came back, and she came to her senses.

After the bathroom—after Spike attacked her—she never imagined he could be something to her. Their relationship was wrong, twisted. Unnatural. But when the First took him from her basement she'd known she was kidding herself. What they had was twisted and unnatural, but it wasn't wrong. It couldn't be.

She wouldn't let it be.

***

Spike stared at the ceiling. Damned unpleasant night, if anyone asked him. Of course, no one would. Creepy thing wearing his skin and bothering Dawn? Sounded just like Sunnydale, no matter what Buffy said. He planned to keep an ear open to make sure Dawn wasn't interfered with during the night.

All in all, a hell of a homecoming.

Not that he'd had a bad reception, really. Everyone had been quite civil, excepting Rupert, who was still on the stiff side. 'Course, he was probably born on the stiff side—he probably found public school to be too unstructured. Hoped they'd add in a little more discipline, find stronger canes for punishments and all; didn't do when they broke, right? Self-righteous sod.

She'd touched his face. Gently, sweetly. Kindly.

Not romantically.

He wasn't sure he wanted it if it wasn't romantic.

What the hell was he doing here anyway? He was drawn to her, helpless. It wasn't a great feeling, but he couldn't stop himself. He'd always been love's bitch, and she liked him to feel her foot on his neck. What could he do? Go away and pretend Buffy didn't exist? Pretend he didn't love her? Pretend he gave a hang about the rest of the world, when all he could think of was whether she was looking at him, whether the smile reached her eyes when she looked at him, whether she leaned close when they were talking?

God, he really was a pathetic bastard, wasn't he?

Why he'd even come to this cookie-cutter suburb, anyway? For a woman who didn't love him? No, she loved him, he reminded himself. Of course, she didn't say "You're the love of my life and have eradicated the memory of what's-his-name from my mind," or give him a great big kiss along with the love. In fact, it was a damned non-specific declaration of love, to his mind; she might have said the same thing to Harris. And he was so exhilarated, and so frightened, to feel the cleansing burn of his soul as it blazed through the cavern, that the moment, which he would have treasured and nursed along in his memory any other time, was pushed aside in his rush to save Buffy. To save Buffy, and finally die a hero.

It beat dying in an alley any day.

What did she have? Why was it always her? She was a cruel bint, careless with his love. His feelings. Taunted him, mocked him, and finally walked away from him as he cried his damned eyes out. Took what he had to give and didn't give anything herself, just absorbed everything he did for her like it was her right. And he couldn't say she was wrong, because he'd do it all again a thousand times. He'd—

Jesus. Was he thinking about Buffy, or Dru?

Dimly, he thought of Harmony. Why hadn't he loved her? _Because she's Harmony, a voice replied in his head. _Haven't you met the girl?__

Or maybe because, as whiny and petulant as she was, she didn't need him. Maybe he really was the sick little fuck Darla always said he was, and he couldn't care for a woman unless she needed him. Yeah, if Harmony had just—_Oh__, who am I kidding? Spike thought in disgust. _Bugger the psychological bullshit. Harmony would have needed a brain transplant to do more than get my motor going. Followed by a personality infusion.__

Love was a selfish bitch goddess that had grabbed him by the balls back when he was William Hudson, and hadn't let go since. Try to understand her, and she'd just give him a squeeze to remind him who was boss.

She was. He'd recognized that long ago.

So maybe Buffy loved him like a brother. Disgusting thought, that, but it didn't change anything. She was here, so he would be here. Nothing else he could do. 

Nothing else he wanted to.

***

Xander didn't know. The others could say it was an incubus or whatever, but the others only knew half the story. They didn't know about Anya, that one day she was just there when he got home from a bar late one night, drowning his sorrows. Sometimes she appeared as blithe as if she'd just gotten home from the Magic Box. Sometimes he walked into the room and she was sprawled on the floor with blood streaking the front of her blouse, eyes fixed and glassy.

He should have told them. He knew that, knew he should have gone out and awoken Giles and the others the first time she'd appeared, but he was shocked, and confused, and grateful. At first, he was grateful.

Crazy thing to be grateful for, right? To be haunted?

Maybe he _was_ crazy. Maybe. It happened to all of them, right? Buffy ties them up and leaves them for a demon to gnaw on, Willow goes black-eyed and tries to destroy the world. If his form of crazy was Anya haunting him, he couldn't complain. It made sense that he wouldn't have some big, dramatic craziness like the others. His friends were superheroes, but he was just Xander. It used to bother him, but he'd gotten used to it a long time ago. And hey, he hadn't tried to kill a whole bunch of people lately, right? So score one for the common man.

And there were worse things than seeing her. Leaving her, for instance. At their wedding. At the school. Nothing could be worse than that.

But now he didn't know; maybe he wasn't just going nuts. Maybe it was something big, something bad. Something Big Bad-like. Dammit! There hadn't been any Big Bads for a few months, not since they left the Hellmouth, and he was kind of getting used to it. Because relative peace and quiet? Surprisingly appealing compared to hell gods, secret military experiments, and being Dracula's butt monkey.

"You don't have to look at me like that," Anya said, drawing his attention to her. He hadn't realized he'd been staring at her. Actually, he'd forgotten she was there.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm a ghost."

"You _are _a ghost," Xander pointed out.

"Well, yes … but not in evil phantom sense," Anya clarified. "More in the loved-one-haunting-you-for-your-own-good kind of way."

"How do I know?"

Anya rolled her eyes. "What have I done that's so evil?"  
  


Xander ignored her question. "So you don't know anything about it?"

"I've told you twice already, I don't know anything about what Dawn saw."

"Or Spike coming back?"

"Or Spike—I've already told you about a hundred times. Of course, you weren't paying attention; I guess some things never change."

Xander willed himself not to say anything. Her visits were great for opening old wounds. Nothing like twisting the knife a little.

"What do you mean by that?" Anya asked suddenly, bending forward intently.

Xander jumped. Sometimes he forgot she could read his mind.

"Of course I can read your mind," Anya pointed out. "I'm a product of your mind that your unconscious is projecting to alleviate your guilt at leaving me at the altar and introducing me into a situation which eventually got me killed through no fault of my own."

Xander flinched. "Anya, I—I—" he broke off, frustrated and exhausted. He'd missed her more than he ever thought he could miss anyone. More than he'd missed Jesse after dusting him, more than he'd missed Cordelia when she left him, even more than he missed Buffy after she died. He'd ached like hell then. It hurt so long and so hard, until finally it started to subside, and despite himself, he began to accept her absence. Until Willow insisted she be brought back.

But he couldn't do that with Anya, because she wouldn't leave. He couldn't move on, couldn't mend. He couldn't stop mourning her, because she wouldn't let him.

"Why are you here?" Xander asked softly, desperation edging his voice. He'd asked the question many times before, and the answer was always the same.

"Because you want me here, Xander. Why else?"

Xander shut his eyes tightly, refusing the sight of her. He thought of her, coming to him in his room every night. Of Spike, returning from the dead. And whatever had been in Dawn's room that night, terrifying her. Was it all connected? Or was it just the detritus of the Hellmouth, clinging to all of them?

"Anya, I—" Xander began quietly, opening his eyes, only to break off. Without a word, she had left. 

It shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. It was the same every night. She never said goodbye, always left him hanging. Every night his soul was rubbed raw by the time he fell asleep, grieving anew, knowing she'd return again the next day and then leave without a word.

At first he thought she stayed because she loved him. Now he wasn't so sure.

Whatever it was, it sure didn't feel like love.

***

Spike couldn't fall asleep. Instead he lay in bed, listening to the house. Listening to the house and _not sleeping_.

He wasn't where he wanted to be. He wanted to be across the hall, with Buffy. Instead he was—

What was that sound?

Spike stopped breathing and listened, but heard nothing. After a moment he relaxed, disgusted with himself. He was developing an imagination in his old age, apparently. Which, since he'd had a hell of an overactive imagination when he was a human before, really seemed quite appropriate.

That's when something slammed into his door.

Spike leapt out of bed, swearing and dragging his jeans on. A moment later he jerked the door open, prepared to fight for all his puny little human body was worth.

Buffy gasped and almost dropped the duffel bag she was holding. "I'm sorry," she whispered, cheeks pinkening. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I just wanted to give you this," she added hastily, thrusting the bag at Spike. He took it, but just stared. "It's yours," she reminded him.

"Yeah … yeah," he agreed after a moment. Never thought he'd see his old stuff again—thought it was gone for good, alone with Sunnydale and the Hellmouth, but apparently, like his duster, it had a few lives left. Which was nice, because it wasn't like he could get some of that stuff again. Some things couldn't be replaced.

He raised his gaze to Buffy's face again, questioningly. "This was a big thing to you, huh?"

"Well … yeah, I figured you'd want your stuff …."

"It's three in the morning," he pointed out in surprise. Buffy shrugged, and made no move to return to her room. 

Spike wasn't sure what to say. He never was with her, but he always tried. Usually got him kicked in the mouth, but he did try. "Would you like to come to bed?" he asked quietly.

Buffy smiled faintly. "Yeah," she replied softly. He moved to let her pass and she walked into the room, pulling the door shut behind her, leaving the duffel bag abandoned in the hall.


	7. Seven

Andrew stretched luxuriantly in bed. For all the excitement the night before he'd slept well, and that was what really mattered—what could a person do if he didn't sleep well? And if anything more had happened, they would have awoken him—right?

Right?

The house was kind of quiet, wasn't it? Like nobody was up, or moving. Or maybe even breathing. Usually Giles was puttering around, clinking his teapot or something, and Dawn was getting ready for school and singing along to the radio. But now, not a sound.

Could whatever-it-was have returned? Snuck back in the dark of night to complete its evil deeds? Killing all but him, so only he was left to tell the tale, a lonely survivor meant to wander in misery? Leaving the house drenched in blood, an eternal reminder that they'd been foolish to disregard it?

Or maybe it was still there.

"Oh my _god_," Andrew breathed, reaching below the bed to pull out his shiny new baseball bat. The others didn't like him to handle real weapons that had points or edges, but everyone was pretty much okay with the bat. Now it was the only thing standing between him and … _it._

Andrew tried not to make any noise as he slipped from his room into the hall. Still nothing to be heard, nothing to be seen. The household was in a state of complete stillness, like the calm after a great battle, and he was the only soldier who yet stirred. And into the yawning—"Aghhh!" Andrew shrieked, tripping over the dufflebag abandoned outside Spike's room.

The door swung open, and Spike glared down at him. After a moment Buffy appeared behind Spike, frowning. Then she was talking, but Andrew couldn't hear anything. She was moving her lips, but nothing broke through to him. He squinted, he concentrated, he tried extra hard to hear—nothing.

He was deaf. 

Dear god, he was doomed to walk in silence, condemned to live in a world devoid of—oh, wait! Andrew reached up to feel his ears and sighed with profound relief; he'd forgotten that he'd put earplugs in the night before. Andrew pulled the foam out of his ears, and the sounds of the household filtered in.

"—so are you hurt or not?" Buffy finished impatiently.

"I'm fine," he assured her, clambering to his feet. "We're having waffles today, right?"

"Yeah," said Buffy. "That's what you and Dawn asked for last night."

"Okay, then—oh, everybody's still alive, right?"

"Uh—I think so," Buffy said.

"That's good, then," said Andrew with satisfaction, and disappeared around the corner, humming.

The two stared after him. "What was that all about?" asked Spike, bemused.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "It's Andrew being Andrew," she sighed.

Spike snorted. "Good to know some things never change."

"Good? I guess that's one theory."

Spike studied her serious face and wondered what she was thinking. She'd come to him the night before, needy, wanting comfort. And wanting to give some, too. They'd held each other, that was all, but he was still … _him, right? It was one thing for them to share a bed when all the other rooms were crowded, but here? Now? Maybe she didn't want anyone to know. Maybe he was back to being her secret._

"Want me to get the boy?"

"Why?" Buffy asked absently.

"Tell him to keep quiet," Spike explained a little testily. Why was she playing dumb like that? She knew what he meant.

Buffy laughed. "Keep _Andrew_ quiet? That would require serious threats or possibly a tongue-ectomy. Don't bother."

"Then everybody'll know—"

"Know what?"

"That you were in my room," he pointed out.

"So?"

"So people will know," he said again.

"What _people?_"

"I mean like Dawn, and Xander, and Giles—you know, the people you didn't want to know anything about us," he said dryly.

"Well, it's a couple years too late for that," she said practically.

Fine, then. Spike shrugged. "Not like we were doing anything worth talking about last night  anyway," he dismissed.

Okay, that stung a little. "Yeah … well, not that's it's any of their business," qualified Buffy.

"Oh, so you'd prefer not to tell them?"

"I_ said_ it doesn't matter," Buffy said impatiently.

"Never did," Spike muttered under his breath.

Buffy rolled her eyes. God, he could sulk. "I _mean, it's okay if Andrew tells them, and we're not going to go down there and say, 'Don't worry! All we did is sleep!' That's our business."_

Spike eyed her speculatively. Didn't mind if any of them thought they were shagging their brains out all night? That didn't sound right. In fact, he felt as if he'd slipped into the Bizarro World, and—_Christ, was that a "Seinfeld" reference? Or Superman? Either way, he'd obviously spent so much time around the Scoobies that something irreversible had happened. Horrible and irreversible. "God, I'm a lifer," he muttered._

Buffy crinkled her nose at him. "What was that?"

"Nothing," he mumbled.

***

Willow tapped one finger against the return key of her laptop. She'd come over as soon as Buffy called and told her about Dawn's little adventure the night before. Well, not really adventure so much as disturbing dream, or maybe extremely scary encounter with the supernatural. The jury was still out, but Willow was grateful to be helping again. When she was across town, it made her feel like she wasn't a part of things anymore. And there were so many fewer problems in Santa Rita than there were in Sunnydale, what with the Hellmouth and all, that her magic skills were getting kind of rusty.

Of course, thanks to school, her computer skills were back up to par. Well, way above par, but who was keeping track?

So far Spike was voting incubus, which Giles said didn't exist. Giles said Traylor demon, which had never been seen in the Western Hemisphere. Personally, Willow was thinking bad dream, although she didn't want to say anything until they'd investigated further. "And nobody else saw or heard anything?" Silence greeted her question. "Okay, then—"

"I'm sure I imagined it."

Everybody turned in surprise as Giles muttered, almost to himself.

"Something happened?" Buffy asked a little apprehensively.

"No, no," Giles dismissed, pulling off his glasses and giving them a self-conscious polish. "Last night—I was simply tired…."

"What's the what, G-Man?" asked Xander.

Giles sighed. "I stayed up to continue researching and became fatigued. Then the script on the page seemed a trifle … odd, so I decided it was high time to turn it. That's all there was to it, really."

"Odd how?" asked Dawn. "I mean, you wouldn't have said anything if you really thought it was nothing."

Spike smirked when Giles glared at Dawn. _Yeah, give it to him, Bit! That's my girl._

"The letters … seemed to shift a little."

"Shift how?" Willow asked.

"It seemed to twist. Slither. Like a snake."

"Why didn't you wake me?" demanded Buffy.

"Because it was nothing—after a moment it returned to normal, and I decided to retire. It was just my imagination," Giles concluded somewhat more forcefully than necessary. "Like—" he broke off, but it was clear what he'd intended to say.

"Like me?" asked Dawn, a little hurt. "Like what I saw?"

"Hey, nobody's saying anything right now about whether that was real or not," Buffy said swiftly, sending Giles a warning glance. She'd really enjoyed thinking that what happened in Dawn's room was just a bad dream, but what Spike had said about primus—uh, incubus, and what Giles had said about that parasite whatever-it-was was all pretty creepy. And Giles, Mr. Rational himself, seeing something the night before? Come on, how often did a bunch of them see something and it was all just a big coincidence? About never.

"Yeah, this is—geez, this is not great," said Willow, her forehead crinkled with worry. "And nobody else saw anything, right?"

Across the table Xander fidgeted. Willow caught the movement and knew he must be unhappy that things like this were happening again; there was a lot he missed about Sunnydale, but she was pretty sure that ghosties and ghoulies weren't among them.

"I did say the book was probably just a result of my extreme tiredness," protested Giles.

"Yeah. Because these things are so often just nothing," Kennedy said scornfully.

"I flatter myself that I have a little experience in this realm," returned Giles tolerantly. "Rushing to make conclusions can lead to significant mistakes. I think it's safe to say that anyone seeing a connection between those is reaching."

"Yeah, incubi don't really care much about making text squiggly," Spike agreed. "They're looking more to get themselves a bit of—" he broke off, realizing the sentence was going someplace he didn't want to imagine Dawn. "Uh, intimate relations leading to the family way."

"'The family way'?" repeated Dawn. "My god, that's so lame. What, are you a hundred?"

"Well actually, I'm a little more—"

"For the third time, incubi are a _myth," Giles gritted._

Willow didn't notice the byplay; something about what Dawn and Giles had said bothered her. Taken individually, sure, they just seemed like dreams or tired eyes or whatever, but together? Both the same night … it reminded her of something. Something they'd seen before. It niggled at her, just beyond her consciousness. It was there … there…."I've got it!" exclaimed Willow. "Thaumogenesis!"

The others swung to face her. "I don't believe I'm familiar with that term," said Giles, frowning.

"Oh, _thaumogenesis!"_ repeated Xander. Giles sent him a stern look, and Xander puffed up a little. It wasn't like he had one over on Giles often, so he had to make the most of it.

"What's 'thaumogenesis'?" demanded Kennedy.

"It's no biggie, really," dismissed Dawn. "Easy fix. Unless it makes you breathe fire. Then you might need a lozenge."

Xander laughed. "Yeah, that was the scariest I've ever seen you—except when you're screaming at us to get out of your room; there's pretty much nothing scarier than that."

"Latin, with a Greek root," mused Giles to himself, disturbed the children were so familiar with something he'd never heard of—something that didn't involve obnoxious, wild-haired layabouts who liked to pretend they knew more than three chords. "It can't be that significant, surely, or else I would—"

"Oooh, you breathed fire?" Andrew asked Dawn, impressed. "Did you burn anything up?"

"No, I mostly—"

"What is thaumogenesis?" repeated Kennedy, her voice rising a little.

"Thaumogenesis sounds like it should be cold, not hot," observed Andrew.

"No, it was really cool—I mean, not cool in a cold kind of way, cool in a strange-and-neat kind of way. And Xander got these crazy eyes and a deep voice—"

"Excuse me, my voice was already deep," interrupted Xander. "Just not as demonic and Darth Vader-y. Mine's more a deep, normal, very manly man kind of voice."

"Would one of you please explain what thaumogenesis is?" Kennedy shouted in frustration. The others quieted down at her outburst, embarrassed.

"Oh. Sorry," said Willow, her cheeks red. "It means a hitchhiker followed Spike back from the great beyond."

"What? You're saying it's _my fault?" Spike protested. "Not likely."_

"It's nobody's fault," Buffy reassured him. "It's the same thing that happened when I came back, remember?"

Spike's mouth compressed into a thin line. "Wasn't precisely kept in the loop back then," he said tightly. "You telling me this same thing happened before?" Jesus, something went wrong with her return? Why didn't anyone tell him?

_You know why, _he thought bitterly._ You were just muscle to the lot of them. Since when do they tell the underlings all the upstairs doings?_

"Buffy, are you saying there were similar occurrences when you were resurrected?" asked Giles, disturbed. They'd never told him—never even hinted that there had been any problems beyond the immediate challenge of raising her. Willow had given him some blithe explanation about an urn and a snake and magicks she had no business dealing in, but she'd never suggested there were any problems after that. Not until Buffy admitted she'd actually been in heaven had Willow allowed that the resurrection had gone other than perfectly.

Buffy shrugged. "It was your basic monster-of-the-week," she dismissed. "Wham, bam, dead demon, ma'a—Giles," she corrected herself.

"What does it want?" Giles rapped out, turning to Willow.

"Well, it wants to stay around. 'Cause being here's better than being in hell. I guess."

Xander laughed. "Hey, when we get through with it, it'll wish we'd just sent it to hell. It'll pray for hell when we're done with it. Hell, it'll pray for _Oxnard_."

Giles sent him a quelling glance. "Are you quite finished?"

Xander considered for a moment. "Well—um—yeah. 'Cause let's face it—_nobody _deserves Oxnard."

"It followed Spike out of hell?" Giles specified.

"What makes you think I was in hell?" challenged Spike, irate—as if he himself hadn't assumed he was going to hell.

Giles gritted his teeth. "I beg your pardon." To Willow: "It followed him back from the dead?"

"Yeah. Well, no, not _exactly," admitted Willow. "It's like a byproduct of resurrection. The natural order is being cheated by Spike returning to life, so this is the price."_

"Some price," Kennedy said in dismay.

A ghost of a smile flitted across Xander's face. "Some people would say it's a gift with purchase." Dawn, sitting next to Xander, squeezed his hand.

"So how do we get rid of it?" asked Spike. Should he offer to leave? It was the gentlemanly thing to do, right? Ugh. Sometimes it had been easier to be a demon, since nobody had expected anything of him. Nobody was surprised when he did the selfish thing then. It made things easier.

Of course, it made other things much, much harder.

"We don't have to do anything," Willow assured him. "It'll dissipate naturally after enough time has passed."

"How much time?" asked Dawn. "I mean, not that I don't enjoy waking up and being threatened and everything, but, uh … how long?"

Willow glanced down. "I'm not really sure," she admitted nervously. "Remember, the demon became kind of—well, it—we had to—"

"I killed it," Buffy interrupted baldly. "It decided to be a little more proactive in the big evil department, and I cut its head off."

Giles sat back a little, disturbed. "So it is capable of doing damage to humans, not merely frightening them?"

"Did a pretty good job on me before Willow and Tara softened it up for me," said Buffy.

"So if you don't kill it, it eventually disappears?" specified Giles.

Willow opened her mouth to mention the little "but" clause with the demon—the demon became permanent if it killed the person whose resurrection created it—but before she could speak, Buffy was nodding and telling Giles, "That's the sitch."

Willow sent Buffy a look, and Buffy sent one right back. _We'll talk later, it said plainly._

Willow frowned, and wondered what Buffy was up to.

***

Spike was the only one who saw Kennedy slip away. She drew further and further back from the others as they talked and squabbled and joked, until finally she just wasn't there anymore.

He completely understood the impulse.

He stayed for a few more minutes, listening to the Scoobies go 'round and 'round they way they always did—the way they had long before he met them. Then he melted away, unnoticed as Kennedy.

She jumped when the back door squeaked. "Want a smoke?" Spike offered, holding his pack of cigarettes out to Kennedy, sitting in the back porch swing.

She wrinkled her entire face in disdain. "Eww, no!"

Spike leaned against the porch railing and studied her angry face. "Getting a little thick in there for you, was it?"

"You think I'd be used to it by now. Scoobies, Scoobies, rah rah rah. This happened two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, let's refer to it in shorthand. Hell, let's refer to it in _Phoenician," she said bitterly. "Everybody who really matters knows it all already, right?"_

Spike nodded philosophically. "It wasn't so bad this time—Giles didn't know what they were talking about either. Most times it's even worse."

Kennedy snorted in agreement.

"I would tell you it'll change, but that'd be a crock. They're bonded with industrial-strength epoxy—when they're not trying to kill each other, that is. They formed their little club years ago, and the rest of us are just visiting; you either accept it or hit the road, 'cause they're not going to change."

"Some choice," muttered Kennedy in disgust. They sat there in silence for a few minutes, absorbing their status as outsiders—visitors to the Scooby circle, temporary no matter how long they were around. No matter what they did, how much they helped.

"You know what's the worst?" he asked absently.

Kennedy shook her head.

"It's that, after awhile, you won't mind it so much. Then you'll start not hating them completely. Then you think they wouldn't be half bad, if they took the sticks out of their asses every so often, and then pretty soon, you catch yourself thinking like one of them. Talking like one of them, brain-dead, vocabulary-stunted California zombies that they are. And then you think, _god, what's happened to me? I'm one of them! _And let me tell you, love—it'll be the worst day of your life," he finished, his cigarette burning down to the filter—had to think of his health now that he had functioning lungs and all. No more flavorful, unfiltered cigs for him, oh no, just filtered pablum appropriate only for babies and invalids.

He ground out the remains of the cigarette, thoroughly disgusted with himself.

Kennedy eyed him skeptically. "You know, Spike? I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Spike looked hopeful for a moment before resignation covered his face. "You're just saying that," he said forlornly. He could tell when his fate was sealed; it wasn't like he didn't have experience being a useless git, after all.

It was a compromise, wasn't it? Got to be him, be Spike. Or be with her. Be hers.

He'd made his choice a long ago. Hadn't been him ever since he let her grab hold of his short hairs way back when, and he'd returned to Sunnydale despite the distinct lack of Dru because she'd wormed her way into his guts. Like trichinosis.

"Spike? We need you," called Buffy from inside.

Spike smiled faintly. "Right there, love."

He'd made his choice. He'd make it again in a minute.


	8. Eight

Chapter Eight

Buffy looked at the faces gazing at her and nodded decisively. "So it's settled—we'll sit back and wait."

_"Wait?_" scoffed Spike. Seemed like a weak, wimpy, wankerish thing to do, as far as he was concerned. Something was out there? So go kill it! Don't sit around waiting for it to mess with you. Spike had never been the waiting kind, for anything.

Well, except for Buffy. For her, he'd waited.

"Wait," repeated Buffy firmly. "There's no reason to go after it. It just created a bunch of weird illusions before, but it didn't actually try to _do_ anything."

"The Bit said it made her breathe fire," Spike protested.

Giles shifted uncomfortably. As much as he hated to agree with Spike, a passive response was seldom successful in combating evil. Wait for it, while simply trusting it not to kill them? Interfere with their lives? Whisper poison in their ears?

He couldn't believe anything good would come of waiting.

Of course, rushing into action could also be disastrous. Giles shuddered as he recalled the horror of Buffy's ill-advised assault on Caleb, leading to Xander's crippling and the loss of so many Potentials.

Irritation pricked at Giles as he thought back on the last year. He'd never seen Buffy so willful, so insistent. What could have possessed her—rushing into battle against a force of unknown power?

_You did_, a voice whispered inside Giles. _You told her again and again that everything depended on her. That she was a leader, and it was time she acted like it._ _She pulled the trigger, but only after you primed it._

So unlike him. He'd always advocated research and planning, not wild strikes, but what had there been to research? Everything was gone. They had virtually no intelligence about the First Evil—only the knowledge that it was powerful enough kill emergent Slayers the world over, and decimate an organization that had lasted millennia.

It had been an injustice to Buffy, expecting her to shoulder the weight of a bureaucracy that had failed her so many times. Failed her, disapproved of her, almost killed her. But Giles had been desperate.

And Buffy hadn't sure at all, but she'd gone ahead. Tried to lead, as he insisted. And that rash action—

"Yeah … no offense, but your idea? It blows," said Kennedy bluntly.

Giles snapped his head up at her words. "Kennedy, must you always dismiss my plans out of hand?" he asked in irritation.

A look of disbelief crossed Kennedy's face, while Dawn hastily clapped a hand over her mouth to contain a giggle.

"Umm, Giles? The whole do-nothing thing? It was actually my plan," Buffy reminded him.

Giles was far too old to blush, but he still had to fight the urge to fiddle with his glasses. "Yes, well, the point stands," he said. He'd pushed Buffy back and forth over the last few years—leaving her after her resurrection, when she begged him to stay. Making sure she felt every bit of the world's weight as she tried to fight against an evil so ancient it had no name. Going along with the Council's insistence to weaken her for the Cruciamentum. Agreeing to Wood's plan to destroy Spike, for her own good.

It was time he was her Watcher again, and not her keeper.

"You heard Buffy," he told Kennedy—told all of them. "She's the one who fought it before—the one who defeated it. If she says we wait, we wait."

The others nodded. They were all in agreement. 

Except for the two with disgruntled expressions. Giles ignored them. Kennedy would eventually learn that she couldn't impose her will on others, while Spike—well, if Giles ignored him long enough, perhaps he'd disappear like a bad dream. Although god knows it had never worked before; he'd tried hard enough during the dreadful period Spike lived with him. Occasionally he still had nightmares about it.

Come to think of it, perhaps now would be a good time to check on their Scotch supply.

***

The living room was empty by the time Giles slipped in again. Kennedy had sulked off first, then Dawn announced she had better things to do when she had a day off school than sit in the living room. Andrew had declared, "You said it, girlfriend!" and followed her out. That left only Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Spike in the room, and that was too small a proportion of Giles to Spike to people who weren't Spike, so Giles had mumbled an excuse and sought sanctuary in his library.

But the library was not as comforting as he expected it to be. When the house was purchased and Buffy suggested he dedicate a room for a library, Giles had been touched by her thoughtfulness. Yet somehow, it had never felt as comfortable and familiar as the Sunnydale High School library. Perhaps it was because Santa Rita was so quiet compared to Sunnydale—he had not nearly as much to research. There hadn't been a single near-apocalypse since the Hellmouth collapsed; it was quite a strange feeling, really, not having to prepare for the next cataclysm. The school library had been the scene of countless all-night research and planning sessions, combat training with Buffy, emotional scenes with all the children. It had really been the center of their existence.

Ironic that it was directly over the Hellmouth, really.

Here, the library was just a place to keep his books. As much as he loved them—as much as he relished the feel of old leather and yellowed parchment—he was discovering that he needed more.

He missed the children. It was clear to him when he was in England, after he'd left Buffy following her resurrection. He missed her terribly. That was to be expected, but his wistful longing for Willow, even for Xander and Anya, had surprised him. And now he was back, but the library isolated him from the others. And so he was thinking that perhaps it was good to come out of his library every so often.

Of course, now that he did, they were gone.

"It figures," he sighed, sinking into the sleek black leather couch. It was nothing like the stiff leather couches Giles had grown up with, and gave luxuriantly under his weight.

"What figures, mate?" asked a voice from the big recliner in the corner. Giles ground his teeth in frustration. It was Spike, of course; who else would it be?

 "Nothing," Giles answered with restrained annoyance.

Spike sat forward and peered around the edge of the chair. "Well, I'm not sure why you'd—god, Rupert, drinking at this hour? You know something I don't?"

"Safe to say," muttered Giles.

"No need to get all superior, lad, considering we're not all that far apart," Spike chided, not very maliciously. Didn't seem to have the heart for loathing Rupert that he used to, which was odd, considering how Giles and Wood had tried to kill him and all. Maybe he was growing soft in his old age.

Or maybe he'd just let Rupert have that one time. Spike had messed with him often enough, back before he became Buffy-addled; Spike would give him a flyer on that one, in the interest of family harmony, as it were.

_Family harmony_. Just thinking of the apoplectic look Giles would get at the term made Spike smile broadly. He had to remember to file that one away, to be used later for maximum effect. Perhaps when Rupert was pouring his tea.

All the same, he was glad Wood didn't belong to this happy little household. That would be a few too many people who wanted to kill Spike in the same house.

"That can be easily remedied," snapped Giles, getting to his feet.

"Settle down, now, that wasn't what I meant."

Giles frowned at him. "What could you possibly be talking about now?"

Spike opened his mouth to enlighten Rupert about how similar their backgrounds were, but shut his mouth abruptly. First he said he went to Cambridge, next thing you know he'd start babbling about the Pre-Raphaelites and Wordsworth and then he'd start reciting that rubbish he used to write. Giles didn't need to know anything about that, none of them did. Bad enough Spike remembered it. You'd think enough grain alcohol would destroy that type of memory, but no luck.

Besides, the look of frustration on Giles's face was priceless.

"Nothing," said Spike innocently.

Giles glared at him suspiciously, then turned to free himself of Spike. There were advantages to an enormous house. Numerous rooms, all with locks, was first among them.

"Don't you think we should talk a little, though? The men of the house, as it were?" Spike asked. Yeah, playing with Ripper was fun. Without even seeing his face, Spike could tell how much Giles hated the suggestion.

"Spike, I hardly think this is necessary—"

"I don't think Buffy wants me to go anywhere," Spike said, suddenly serious. Typical for him—he always did have the attention span of a toddler who'd gone nuts with the Pixie Stix. "So I'm staying put. You telling me you're planning to leave?"

Giles swung around to meet Spike's gaze. "I didn't say that," he denied sharply.

"Then I'd like to know I can rely on you not to, say, stab me or otherwise arrange for my demise," said Spike dryly.

"And I'd like to think I can trust you not to harm Buffy or Dawn," Giles returned evenly.

The answer was out of Spike's mouth immediately, without thought. "I'd never hurt either of them."

"Really? That's not what I heard," returned Giles bitingly, and Spike suddenly knew, with a cold certainty, what Giles was referring to. What had happened—what he'd tried to do—in the bathroom, to Buffy.

The two men were silent for several moments, the only sound in the room their breathing, harsher than it needed to be. As if they'd been running, or fighting. "Buffy told you?" Spike asked finally.

Giles's mouth twisted. That would be the natural assumption, of course. But Buffy held things too close ever to tell him something like that. She had revealed enough of herself to Giles when she told of him of her involvement with Spike; she wouldn't even have told him that much if she weren't dazed with relief at his return.

No, she would never have shared so much with him, and it hurt. The most painful things, he always had to find out from someone else.

"Dawn told me," he said flatly.

Spike flinched. "Dawn," he repeated softly, looking down to stare at his hands. She hadn't referred to it since the first time he'd seen her, when he first came out of the basement. His first, disastrous trip out.

Giles surveyed him coldly. "You're not a vampire any longer. You can't hurt Buffy," he observed. Spike flinched again, and Giles felt only vaguely ashamed at the dart of pleasure he took in the sight. "But you can hurt Dawn."

"I wouldn't—"

"A minute ago you said you'd never hurt Buffy."

Spike didn't answer. There was nothing he could say.

Giles eyed him coldly. "You're human now. I don't kill humans." A second later, the memory of holding his hand over Ben's mouth as he struggled and gasped up on the tower returned to Giles. He pushed it away. Spike knew nothing of that. None of them did. There were some things it was better they not know.

They knew as much of Giles as they needed to. It was best, he thought, that no one knew everything that went on inside another person.

Perhaps Buffy was right. Some things really were best kept private.

"I wouldn't kill another human. Not without provocation," Giles added after a moment. He turned to leave the room, and then paused.

"Be sure you don't give me any."

***

They drifted out to meet her on the back porch. Not together, because that would be a dead giveaway, but a few minutes apart.

"Do you think they know?" asked Willow quietly.

Buffy glanced at Xander, and he shrugged. "I don't think so," she said finally. "But we should be quick about it anyway—I don't want them to become suspicious."

Xander nodded. "Okay, but what was the big with the secrecy? Why didn't you just—"

"Look, do you remember last time, when I came back? And it could be any one of you?" Buffy pointed out. "I don't want it to get any ideas by hearing us talk about it."

Xander and Willow glanced at each other in understanding. The demon created by thaumogenesis hadn't just done borderline cool stuff like make Dawn breathe fire; it had hidden in Xander while they researched, until it learned that in order to stay around, all it had to do was kill the person whose resurrection had created it.

Buffy.

"So, we don't talk about it," agreed Xander. "But how do we keep the others from researching it? The demon can speak, so it can probably read—right?"

Buffy nodded, the stress of the situation beginning to show around her eyes. "This thing's really rare, right? It took you guys forever to find it, and it was only in one book."

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Willow, seeing where Buffy was headed. "So you want to get rid of the book, so no one else can read it, and so the demon doesn't find out the you-know-what?"

Buffy nodded. "Exactly."

Xander shook his head. "I think I may have spotted a small flaw in your plan, Buff."

"What?"

"Uh, Watcher-Man had his books shipped over when we moved in here. If _we_ had a book with thaumogenesis in it, you can bet he does."

Ugh! Nothing was ever simple, thought Buffy in frustration.  She swung back to Willow. "He's right," Buffy agreed. "Go through all of them. Take any that refer to thaumogenesis."

Xander gave her a skeptical look. "Don't you think Giles might notice it if she went around lugging big armloads of his books? Most of them are the size of a water buffalo, give or take an inch or two, so it's not like she can just stick them in her pocket and hightail it out of there."

"I don't have to take them," said Willow suddenly.

Buffy looked at her, frowning. "Yeah, you do. Or we do. We can't let the demon know that—"

"I mean, I don't have to take them to do that. Just make sure that no one else can find them," said Willow with a little smile.

"What'd you have in mind?" asked Xander.

Willow's smile grew. "Do you remember when I came back from England?" she asked. "The books don't have to go anywhere—I'll just make them invisible, and shazaam! No messy lifting and carrying. Giles can be right next to the books and not even see them."

"Hidden in plain sight," observed Xander with satisfaction.

"Plain sight that's not actually in sight, yes," specified Willow. The others laughed, and after a moment she laughed with them. It seemed like a long time ago that she'd been so frightened of how they'd react when she came back; now it was natural again to be with them, happy and laughing. This was the way it should be, the three of them. Like it always had been—almost always. Things were always better when they were together.

They were so involved in their conversation that none of them noticed the slim figure hidden in the shadows of the kitchen, or saw it turn and slip away into the house. They hadn't said everything, but they'd said enough. More than enough.

And if they thought hiding a bunch of books would stop anything, they were wrong.


	9. Nine

Chapter Nine

"Are you coming or not?" Buffy asked over her shoulder. The question was rhetorical; she knew Spike wouldn't stay behind.

"Shouldn't we get weapons?" asked Spike dubiously, glancing back at the house.

"We're not patrolling, we're just walking," Buffy told him—not for the first time. "I've got my emergency stake. We don't need anything else."

She continued walking, and Spike hurried up to catch up. "So patrolling's later?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. He was like a dog with a bone, if the bone involved swords and battle axes. "We don't have to patrol—I told you, this isn't the Hellmouth."

"And there aren't any scary beasts or world-shaking apocalypses?" Spike clarified. He just wanted to be sure, what with the world's tendency to end and all.

"That's right."

Spike walked beside her in silence for a moment. "So this is a perfectly nice, normal little town, sounds like."

She made a sound of agreement.

"So why are you here?"

Buffy stopped in surprise and looked at him. "Why am I here?" she repeated. He just stared at her curiously. "Where else would I go?"

Spike shrugged. "Dunno. But I can't really see you just doing nothing."

"I'm not doing _nothing_, I'm—I'm being normal," Buffy insisted, exasperated. "I'm going to school and—and being a person. Like other people."

"So you're not patrolling?"

"Well, not often—"

"So you do patrol sometimes?"

"Now and then—"

"But nothing big?"

"Right!" said Buffy with relief. Spike could be pretty dense when he wanted to be, which was whenever he wanted to annoy her. But, ha! Without the one-in-all-the-world weight on her shoulders, she was very nearly unannoyable. Or something like that, but an actual word that made sense. "But nothing big ever happens, so I don't have to patrol a lot."

"How many Slayers are there now?"

Buffy blinked at his abrupt change of topic. "Uh, I don't know … thousands?"

"You … _don't know?_" repeated Spike. Seemed a mite cavalier to him.

"Well, we're trying to find them," Buffy defended. "Willow helped the Council of Watchers—there aren't many of them, but they've re-formed—set up a guidance spell to help locate new Slayers, so the Watchers are out making with the locating."

Hmm. Made sense, but … "Why's Giles with you?"

_Why was he with her? What kind of a question was that?_ "Wha—what? Why wouldn't he be with me? Where else would he be?"

"With one of the thousands of Slayers who doesn't have a Watcher, and actually needs to learn about fighting and researching and all that rah-rah, go-team, fight-evil stuff," Spike said dryly. "Instead of, say, the only Slayer in the world with an assload of experience, who does what she wants anyway."

Buffy stared at him for a moment without answering, then resumed her walk, mumbling under her breath.

"What? Didn't catch that, love, human hearing now, remember?"

"I didn't ask Giles to stay," Buffy muttered.

Okay, maybe that was a sore point. "Never said you did," he soothed. "Just wondered." After a minute he added, "Where _are_ the other Slayers?"

"Wherever they want," Buffy said without looking at him.

Spike raised his eyebrows. "And Rupert was okay with that?"

Buffy hesitated. "Actually, uh, he didn't like the idea."

Spike was unsurprised. "What'd he want to do? Have some big Slayer factory like at your place last spring, only super-sized?"

"Something like that," admitted Buffy. The very thought of it made her ill. She'd told Giles again and again how she felt about it. She told him the girls needed their families, their friends. Needed lives. That pulling them away from that was obscene, that they'd become automatons, like Kendr—

Okay, that wasn't fair. Not to Kendra, or to all the other Slayers who were just like her. Just like her because that's all they were allowed to be.

And just like her because they were dead.

Spike had been right when he'd said, years before, that her family and friends tied her to life. Without them she would have stopped caring, stopped trying. She would have been an automaton, like Kendra, or a psycho, like Faith.

She would have been what she was like after she'd been resurrected, only sooner. 

She couldn't let that happen to all those girls. They'd argued about it for weeks, but finally Giles had given in. The girls could choose. "There's a training program for the new Slayers, in England, but it's voluntary," said Buffy. "Some of them are there."

"How many?" Spike asked.

"Not many," Buffy admitted.

"Can't blame 'em, really," Spike said.

"Yeah," Buffy sighed. "The ones who don't go through the program, the council tries to fix them up with local martial arts and weapons experts, so they'll know how to take care of themselves. And there's a—a—" Buffy broke off, her face pinkening. It sounded a little stupid—okay, more than a little. "A website for Slayers, so the girls can—_shut up_!" she demanded as Spike began guffawing. "Stop laughing!"

Spike turned away from her in a futile effort to get his snickering under control. "I'm not laughing," he lied. "I was—appreciating the magnificence of the sunset."

"With laughter?" Buffy scoffed.

"I'm extremely appreciative," Spike choked. Buffy glared at him, but he didn't see it. After a moment he was composed enough to face her again. "So, a website?" he asked, as if he hadn't been laughing at the idea.

Buffy ground her teeth. "It's a way for everybody to share ideas and strategies, and bitch about being chosen, and argue about who's stronger, and get all bond-y and stuff," she said. "I mean, what's the alternative? A big Slayer school? No one would be happy, and pretty soon they'd all hate each other, and hate slaying. That will come soon enough by itself," Buffy added with a trace of bitterness.

Buffy resumed walking, stomping a little. What to do with the Slayers had been argued so many times that Buffy was sick of it. She wasn't right about everything—she knew that, no matter what Dawn said—but pulling the girls away from their families and putting them into some kind of a big Slayer factory would have been her worst nightmare as a teenager. They were finding them and trying to help them. If the girls didn't want to go to through the Slayer training program the council had set up, that was fine. If they didn't want to slay, that was fine, too. No one was making them do anything.

They'd been drafted for a reason, and that reason had passed. 

"I almost—" Buffy broke off abruptly. She'd never told anyone, and nobody needed to know. She felt guilty even thinking it.

"What, pet?"

Buffy hesitated. "After Sunnydale—after it was all over—I looked at the survivors. They were all so excited. I mean, they were happy to be alive, but it was more than that. They were all jazzed about their neat new superpowers, and the feeling of invincibility, and I knew it wasn't going to last. Pretty soon they'd start to feel it."

"It?" queried Spike gently. He was pretty sure he knew where she was going. He usually did, as long as he wasn't the subject.

"The responsibility. Duty pressing down on you night and day until it's crushing you. And nobody can help you, no matter how hard they try. And then they're angry that they can't, like it's something you're choosing, and then they can't take it anymore, and you're alone. Ultimately, you're alone. So I thought—if Willow did it, she can undo it."

"Un-Slayer them?"

"Yeah."

Spike studied her. "Why didn't you?" 

She didn't answer for long time, and they walked in silence. "When I turned eighteen, the council put me through this test," she finally said.

"Test? You mean like with Glory, when they asked your friends and your sexier enemies how you were doing with the slaying?"

"I mean like they drugged me so I lost my strength, then released an insane vampire who grabbed—okay, long story short? They took my Slayer power and then made me fight a vampire."

"They took your power?" repeated Spike. He couldn't imagine it—the Slayer without her power? _Buffy_ without her power? He couldn't picture it; he'd always seen her so confident. Knocking gods around, dispatching ghoulies without breaking a sweat. Throwing him across a room and kissing it better. Or not, sometimes. She'd never been just an ordinary girl to him. Didn't know why she'd want to be.

"It was—awful," she said softly. "To have that power and then lose it. I didn't want them to know what that was like. You can't imagine how horrible it was."

Spike eyed her. "That I can," he said, his voice even. Had she forgotten his chip so soon? He'd been leashed, turned into something tame. Unable to kill even to feed, to say nothing of killing for entertainment purposes. Of course, now he could hit people all he wanted. They just probably wouldn't notice.

She swung to face him, surprise and a trace of embarrassment on her face. She couldn't believe she'd said something so stupid. He'd adjusted to it so well—after a rocky beginning, he'd adapted as if it were his natural state. Even with the restraint, she'd known he was powerful and dangerous. A force to be reckoned with, despite what she'd sometimes said. "I'm sor—"

"Doesn't matter," Spike dismissed diffidently. "So tell me, what's the point of this definitely not-a-patrol walk?"

Buffy smiled tentatively. "Just thought you might appreciate a little time away from the others," she said. "You've been around them for a whole day and a half—I was concerned your head might explode or something if you didn't get a break."

Spike nodded and didn't answer. Buffy glanced at him thoughtfully, wondering if he bought it. Yeah, it was nice to be away from the house sometimes. God knew, there were so many people around it felt like _Potentials 2: Electric Boogaloo_. 

And if they were alone—if they were away from the others—the thaumogenesis demon wasn't around. Not hiding in one of them, at least. If it attacked when they were alone she wouldn't have a problem dealing with it. But in the house—well, it was so big it took a few minutes to cross. And a lot could happen in a few minutes, especially to someone who, instead of the strength of a vampire, now had the strength of a short, skinny guy.

"And," Buffy added. "I've found a place that serves a great bloody onion."

"A … what?" Spike asked, slightly repulsed.

"Isn't that what you like, a blood—_blooming_ onion," Buffy corrected.

Spiked eyed her. "You know, there was a time when I would have enjoyed a bloody onion. I mean, a regular blooming onion, but dipped in—"

"That's enough!" Buffy said. 

Spike chuckled and relented. "Okay. Lead on, McDuff."

Being contrary, she immediately halted. "Spike?"

"What?"

Buffy hesitated. "Are you … glad you're alive?" God knows, she hadn't been the happiest little resurrected girl in the world.

"Yeah, pet. Real glad," he told her, smiling faintly.

She startled him by taking his hand, and tentatively squeezing it.

"So am I."

***

Willow barely touched dinner. Andrew had made it—baked ziti, which she'd once dreamed of eating in Italy with John Cusack—and it smelled good, but her stomach was in knots and every time she tried to lift a forkful to her mouth her throat closed up.  

The others ate like nothing was wrong. Even Kennedy, who kept sending her glances when the rest weren't looking. She knew something was wrong; why shouldn't she? They were lovers. They sensed things about each other, right? Like when someone was sick, or blue.

Or when things were ending.

Suddenly Willow wasn't in the house on Laurel Drive, but in Xander's long-gone apartment, with Tara sitting beside her. Willow, suddenly realizing that Tara was breaking up with her, and desperately trying to change her mind. Willow saw herself wring the concession out of Tara that they'd give it a week, and saw herself cling to it like it was a life preserver.

For the first time Willow felt, sharply, what Tara must have been feeling, and nausea overwhelmed her.

"Excuse me," she muttered, shoving back from the table and hurrying from the room. The others stopped mid-bite and stared after her, and before she'd even cleared the room she could hear another chair scrape along the floor and knew it was Kennedy, following her.

Willow was shamefully glad that she reached the bathroom before Kennedy caught up with her.

Willow shut the door and locked it, leaning against it in relief. It was pathetic to be so happy to be away from your girlfriend, right? Yay for locks.

No, it was more than pathetic. It was wrong. Kennedy—she was special. An Amazon, a warrior. Willow was still amazed that Kennedy had been drawn to her.

But that didn't make things any better. She was glad she'd known Kennedy, glad they'd been together. But she wasn't glad anymore, and she was sick of pretending. She didn't love Kennedy. The woman she loved was buried in the same hole in the ground as Joyce and Anya and Grampa Harold, and Willow hadn't even had a chance to mourn her properly. She couldn't pretend things were okay between her and Kennedy anymore.

They'd _never _been okay.__

That was it. She wasn't going home that night. Not to the apartment they shared. That was Kennedy's. The house on Laurel was Willow's home now.

Willow turned on the faucet and patted cold water on her face, willing herself to calm down. She'd be relieved, later. After she'd hurt Kennedy. After she'd made her cry and shout. After Willow wished she hadn't said anything, she'd be relieved. They both would. Kennedy had to know it wasn't working. They argued, and she sulked, and Willow smiled fake smiles, and there was all this tension. Deep down, they'd both be relieved. They would.

Kennedy was waiting when Willow opened the door. "Are you all right?" she asked, frowning.

Willow tried for a confident smile, but it melted off her face. Who was she kidding? This was going to be rotten, and nobody was going to be relieved. Kennedy was going to be upset. She was going to make a scene. Everybody would come in to see what was wrong, and Willow wouldn't break up with her, because she wouldn't want to embarrass Kennedy in front of them. Maybe it should wait 'til they got home.

Looking into Kennedy's face, Willow knew she could tell herself that every night and put it off again and again. In five years, she'd still be telling herself to wait until they were alone. "It's over," Willow heard herself say, as if from a distance.

"What?" said Kennedy in surprise.

Willow flinched. "It's—us. It's over."

For a moment Kennedy looked at her, stunned. Guilt rushed at Willow, and she shut her eyes against the sight of Kennedy's hurt expression. When she opened them Kennedy's face was as clear and blank as the Bot's. "Okay," said Kennedy, her voice just a little thin. "You're the boss."

She turned and walked down the hall without another word, and then Willow heard the _snick_ of the front door shutting quietly.

After a moment Willow released the breath she'd been holding. She stood in the hall a few more minutes, as if something were going to happen. The ground start shaking perhaps, or the wind rattling. Or more likely, Kennedy coming back in and demanding to know what Willow meant by _over_.

But nothing happened, and Willow finally went back to the dining room. She cleared the table with Dawn and Xander, then helped Giles load the dishwasher while the others went off to watch TV. Nobody asked where Kennedy was, or why Willow was so quiet. It was as if they knew.

Willow wandered out the front door and walked to the sidewalk. She peered down the street, eyes straining. She couldn't see Kennedy, of course. Even if Kennedy had been hopping backwards on one foot, she'd be home by now. 

Willow hated not having someone to talk about it. Why did Buffy go out? Why did Buffy pick tonight of all nights to go out with Spike, instead of staying home like she usually did? Sure, Spike had just come back and everything, and maybe they wanted a little alone time, but sometimes other people needed Buffy time, too. Especially Willow, especially when she'd just broken up with her girlfriend.

_Well, it's not like Buffy knew you were going to do it, _her nice, rational brain pointed out._ You didn't even know you were going to do it tonight. If you had, you would have packed a bag, right?_

_Bleh_, thought Willow in discontent, wandering back to the front step and sitting down. Her brain was right as usual. But this … this was just so sudden, and she wanted to talk to someone about it. But she was being selfish, wasn't she? She had a whole houseful of people to talk to. Kennedy—Kennedy was alone in Santa Rita. She'd only really had Willow. Now she had no one.

"Willow?"

Willow started at the sound of her name, then relaxed as she realized it was just Xander. "Yeah?"

"Is everything all right?"

Willow turned to face him. "Everything's fine," she said weakly.

Xander looked skeptical. "You sure? 'Cause you don't really sound that fine, on the Brace-Goldsmith Fineness Scale."

"Kennedy and I broke up," she said without preamble.

Xander looked at her curiously. "Whose idea was it?"

"Mine," she sighed.

He nodded, dropping down beside her. "Would congratulations be inappropriate?"

Willow winced. "Xander—"

"I know, I know," he said, waving his hands. "But you don't have the look of someone who just ended a perfectly happy relationship."

Willow crinkled her forehead. "How do I look?"

"Relieved."

"I'm _not_ relieved, this is a very emotional time, and a very serious one, and I can't—can't just be—god, I _am_ relieved," mumbled Willow guiltily, dropping her head into her hands. "And I shouldn't feel this way!"

"Why not?"

"Because Kennedy's out there, feeling bad, and I'm the reason why," Willow said forlornly. 

Xander chuckled and pushed a wing of brilliant red hair behind her ear, then dropped his arm around her shoulders. "You've always wanted to make things right," he said. "Like when we couldn't keep our hands off each other, you wanted to make sure we didn't ruin what we had with Cordy and Oz, and tried to fix it."

"Look how well that turned out," muttered Willow, recalling the disastrous aftermath of her de-lusting plan—Spike had kidnapped them, Oz had broken up with her temporarily, and Cordelia had dumped Xander for good. He'd been alone then, the same way he was alone now.

"Yeah," murmured Xander, lost in recollection for a moment before returning to the present. "But if we were meant to be with them, they'd still be here."

"Kennedy's here."

"Just because someone's here doesn't make it right."

Willow folded her head into the crease of Xander's shoulder, wrapping her arms around him. They'd both lost a lot. They all had. "Just because someone's not here doesn't mean it was wrong," she said softly.

Xander squeezed her shoulders. "Remember what Buffy said, way back when we were in high school? That our love lives were doomed because we lived on the Hellmouth?"

Willow smiled faintly. "Yeah. She was kind of right, wasn't she?"

"Yeah. But we're not on the Hellmouth any more."

Willow studied him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean we've got a chance at a new life here. It's time we started living it."

"Easier said than done," Willow sighed.

Xander was silent. She was right. She usually was.

What the hell was it with all of them? Willow was hung up on Tara, he on Anya. Buffy living like a nun and then hooking up with Spike again. It was like they were just going through variations of their old lives. There had to be something more.

They just had to learn how to find it.


	10. Ten

Chapter 10

Sometimes, Xander thought, he hadn't given the basement enough credit. Admittedly, it was a dump and reeked of cat urine and something that smelled like moldy bread. And it was within easy, inconvenient hearing distance of his parents and their drunken arguments. And there was no heating or air conditioning, and the TV only got two channels, and every single moment he spent in there he felt vines growing around his ankles, tying him there to the basement, the bottom rung of the Harris family, never to escape. Like quicksand, except in the basement, you only wished you were dead.

But when he went into the basement at the end of the day, when he took off the clothes from his job-of-the-week and crawled into bed or just tried to listen to some scratchy old 45s and forget who he was, he didn't have to clench his stomach against the sight of the woman he loved, tauntingly out of reach. Out of reach because she was dead, but there because she wanted to kill him, too. Just more slowly than she'd gone. Death by torture. Slow, but effective.

"You know what's nice about being dead?" Anya asked idlely. The question prompted a rush of nausea in Xander, and he didn't answer. "You get to see your old friends. You'd be surprised how often Hallie and I play cards. And my mother—she's always fun. It's been years—well, a millenium, give or take a century. I'm finding out all these things about her I never knew. It's very exciting, really."

After a moment Xander asked quietly, "Have you seen anyone else?"

"Who? You mean like Olaf? I don't think he's dead, is he? Just hammerless. Besides, I don't think troll gods go to the afterlife. Possibly troll Valhalla. I'm not really sure."

Xander flinched. "No, I mean like … Joyce, or Tara. Or maybe, uh … maybe my parents?"

Anya looked at him curiously. "Oh, are they dead?"

Xander flinched. Why, he had no idea; it wasn't as if they were any kind of parents to him while they were alive. He'd survived, become a man, despite them, not because of them.

No, that wasn't right, was it? They'd made him the man he was. The man who'd be so afraid of life, of the future, of ties to others, that he'd told Anya, when she'd looked at him, radiant with expectation, that he couldn't marry her. They could have no life together.

Yeah, his parents had molded him all right.

So what the hell did he care if they were alive? That one day he'd gone over to their place and found it abandoned, drawers and boxes left open, because why bother making the place neat if you're leaving? It was them in a nutshell: careless, gone, no word. No thought to the son they left behind. The son who'd always been an unwelcome afterthought.

God damn them, he cared.

"So you, uh, haven't seen them?" he clarified, avoiding Anya's question.

"No," Anya replied simply. Before he could release the breath he didn't know he was holding she added, "But then I was never really close to them, so I doubt they'd come all the way to see me. I mean, we'd most likely just sit around and stare at our shoes, and then your father would say something inappropriate, and then your mother would become upset, and then I'd think how unfortunate it was that I wasn't a vengeance demon any longer, since your mother would undoubtedly be saying all the horrible things she wished would happen to your father, and then the next thing you know—"

"Fine, fine, you haven't seen them," said Xander hastily. He'd almost forgotten how she could make him regret asking a question.

"Well, if you regretted asking me anything, you never had a problem just taking it back, did you?" asked Anya acidly. Reading his mind in death as she never could in life.

Xander shut his eyes and pressed his lids together he saw stars. She'd be gone when he opened them.

What if she wasn't?

Xander didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want her to still be there.

"You're going to be that way about it?" she asked huffily. "Go to all the trouble to conjure me and then don't want me to be here? Fine, have it your way!"

"What is this, a Burger King commercial?" demanded Xander crankily, opening his eyes.

Of course, she was gone.

Xander fell back on the bed and mumbled, "I have got to get a life that doesn't include dead people."

He hadn't thought he'd see her again. He didn't know, but that talk with Willow—if Anya was just a figment, like she kept saying, why hadn't she disappeared? He'd had his big breakthrough about getting on with life; it was the feel-good hit of the year, and _why_ was she still coming around?

She didn't do anything bad when she visited. She didn't threaten him, or hurt him. Not physically. She didn't do _anything_. She was just there. But he never knew when she was coming or going, knew only that he'd feel all depressed and exhausted when she left. It was slow and painful, like Chinese water torture, or a Rob Schneider movie.

She was controlling his life now more than she had when they were engaged. And hard as it was to believe, they'd broken up—he'd left her at the altar—a year and a half ago. If she was really just a figment, why in the hell was he having so much trouble letting go?

Maybe she wasn't a figment at all.

"This is it," muttered Xander, shoving his feet into slippers. "I can't take it anymore." He hurried down the stairs, and made his way across the house to the library.

He'd never liked the library. The one at Sunnydale High had been all right, mostly because he hadn't thought of it as library; it has been more like a living room, except without a TV. Which was actually the most important part of any living room, so maybe the whole analogy was kind of lame. But this place was … sterile. Cold. Uninviting. It was like distilled Giles, except for all the good Giles parts.

Okay, maybe that analogy wasn't too great either.

It was weird to be in the room. The only times he'd gone into it were when he'd been helping Giles with something, which wasn't often. Their post-Sunnydale life had been pretty uneventful. Except for the whole scary thing the night before, of course. And all the exciting Anya visits over the last few months. Which was absolutely, positively not connected to the other thing.

Right?

"A little research never hurt anyone," muttered Xander, heading over to the first bookshelf. Of course, the library at the school'd had a card catalogue, which made things easier in theory. In reality, the Dewey Decimal system was one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the unsuspecting public. Everyone pretended it was great, but _nobody knew how to use it. _He didn't even think Giles did.

Xander walked up to the nearest bookcase and eyed the volumes. Unfortunately, there didn't appear to be one titled _When Dead Girlfriends Attack_. Finally he just grabbed a book at random and sat at the desk, flipping through the index. Gherkin, Ghirjonh, Ghost, Ghoul—wait, _gherkin_? There was no way he couldn't look that up.

_Gherkin—favorite food of the lower caste of the Kneef demon; frequently used as bait when infestation is a problem_. Huh. Well, he had always suspected pickles were evil. And mostly used as filler.

Back to business—Gherkin, Ghirjonh, Ghost. Page 327.

_Ghost—noncorporeal entity which haunts chosen locations or persons._ _Although not inherently malevolent, the spirit reflects the character of the deceased, and hence may be evil. Associated with sensations of cold, strange sounds and smells, calling out the names of the living, the disappearance of small objects, and interference with electrical appliances. Standard removal procedure is exorcism by a member of the church._

"Ghost! You think it's a ghost?" said a voice over Xander's shoulder.

Xander jumped and slammed the book shut. Jesus, if he lived to a thousand he'd never get used to Andrew's silent walk. "There's no ghost," he said hastily.

Andrew didn't look convinced. "You were following the sentence with your finger," he pointed out. "So you now you don't think it was thaum—thaumo—that thing?"

"It's thaumogenesis! Or … something."

Andrew nodded. He knew exactly what was happening. Poor Xander! Visions of his lost love were tormenting him so terribly that he could no longer bear it. But he wasn't alone. Andrew couldn't bear to see him suffer in solitude any longer. "Does it have something to do with Anya?" he asked sympathetically.

Xander froze, shocked. "What?"

"It's okay," he told Xander tenderly, putting a hand on his shoulder and nodded wisely. "I know."

"You _know_? How could you—" Xander broke off as a scream from upstairs ripped through the quiet house. It was just like the night before.

This time, it was Willow.

* * *

Giles and Dawn were already in Willow's room by the time Xander and Andrew got there. Buffy and Spike were there, too.

In bed with her.

"Why are you in my bed?" Spike asked, blinking his eyes against the bright light.

"Uh … that's what I was thinking," admitted Willow, keeping the covers up securely under her arms. Since she hadn't planned to be there that night she didn't have any night clothes, so Xander had loaned her a T-shirt to wear, which seemed pretty inadequate considering she was now sandwiched in between Buffy and Spike.

"'S my bed," complained Spike, tugging at the covers.

"_What_ is happening?" asked Giles, finally coming out of the horrified daze induced by seeing Buffy, Willow, and Spike in the same bed.

"Is this something I shouldn't see?" asked Dawn, face reflecting her typical adolescent distaste. At least they all appeared to have clothes on. That was something, right?

Right. Like she wouldn't be telling a therapist about this in five years no matter how it turned out.

"I'm not sure," admitted Willow, trying to pull the covers back from Spike, who was holding on to them like a limpet.

"Do I have to threaten Spike or, uh, anyone?" offered Xander. Didn't seem like it, but he felt he should make the offer.

"None of you hurt Spike," Buffy demanded, clambering over Willow to Spike and patting the side of his head in an affectionate and somewhat painful way. "He's all weak and human now."

"'m not weak!" protested Spike, struggling out of the bed and raising his hands in front of him in sloppy mimicry of a boxer. "And I'll fight anyone who says different!"

"You're … drunk," realized Giles in disbelief.

"That's not true," asserted Spike, his speech a little slurred. "We didn't even finish the pitcher, and I can drink anyone under the table!"

Buffy wagged her finger at him. "You're not a vampire, remember?" she lectured him. "You're not superhuman any more."

He looked outraged. "Just you wait 'til we're in bed, missy, and I'll show you superhuman."

Buffy caught Giles's shocked eye and wanted to reassure him. "It's okay," Buffy whispered to him loudly. "We've slept together a bunch of times."

"Lotsa different positions," Spike mumbled, collapsing onto the carpet for a short nap.

Buffy bent and patted his rumpled curls. "Lots of positions," she agreed soothingly.

"Okay, okay, enough, we get the picture," Dawn said hastily. God, why hadn't she worn earplugs to bed? Or taken Tylenol PM? She didn't want to hear this stuff!

"I think it was enough several minutes ago," Xander agreed, wincing.

"What are you all doing in here?" asked Giles in frustration.

"We went to bed. But Willow was already in the bed," complained Spike from the floor.

"Oh … oh! Is this the room you used last night, Spike?" asked Willow.

He didn't answer, so Buffy nodded for him.

Willow was a little embarrassed. "Oh. 'Cause this was my room when, uh, when I lived here."

"Oh yeah," said Buffy blankly. "Up, Spike! Get up!"

Xander flinched. "Uh, could you not use those exact words?"

Buffy squinted at him. "Dirty mouth!" she exclaimed disapprovingly. Bending down to Spike, she tugged him to his feet and shambled out of the room with him. "Come on, we can sleep in my room."

The others turned to watch them disappear around the doorway. A thud and a flurry of giggles suggested they might have bumped into the wall on their way down the hall.

Willow sighed after they'd left. "Okay. Goodnight," she said to the others, who remained rooted in place. "You guys can all leave now." Twelve or fifteen hours of sleep would help erase the memory of the entire night, hopefully, except maybe the part about not being with Kennedy any more.

The others muttered their goodnights—Willow was pretty sure she heard Giles mumble something about brandy—and filed out, leaving only Dawn in the room. "Dawnie? You okay?"

Dawn was silent for a moment before speaking suddenly. "Were you afraid?"

"What? When?"

"When Spike was there. I mean, both of them, but … you know."

"You mean, did I think it was the demon?"

Dawn nodded mutely.

Willow shrugged helplessly. "I thought I was at Sunnydale High, and a giant duck was jumping on my desk," she answered honestly. Dawn squinted at her. "I was asleep, remember? As soon as I came to I recognized their voices. And, uh, smelled the beer. So I was not so much afraid of the demon, and more afraid of being thrown up on."

"I'm not afraid," Dawn said out of the blue.

_Well, that was a sudden transition_, Willow thought. "Uh—okay, I didn't think you were—"

"And I'm not afraid to go back to my room," Dawn added a little too bravely.

_Ahhh._ "Dawnie? You want to spend the night here?"

"Yes, please," Dawn replied immediately, and dove beneath the covers. She felt a little guilty—she shouldn't be afraid to sleep by herself. She'd fought demons and monsters and was a full-fledged Scooby. She was tough! She was powerful!

And in a few days the demon would evaporate and she'd be okay to sleep on her own. Then she wouldn't have to bug Willow, and—_hey!_

"What are you doing here?" she asked Willow in surprise. "Why aren't you at home?"

Willow flinched. "I, uh, I am."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Kennedy and I broke up," Willow said quietly. "I'm moving back here."

Dawn absorbed the news. She'd never really liked Kennedy. It was the first time she hadn't liked someone one of the Scoobies went out with. "How do you feel? Are you okay?" asked Dawn carefully.

"I don't know yet," Willow admitted.

After a moment Dawn said, "I'm glad you're back."

She nestled her head in Willow's shoulder, the way she used to when Willow babysat her when Buffy was supposed to be there but was secretly out with Angel, and Willow felt tears sting her eyes at the impossible familiarity of it—taking comfort in a make-believe past with a manufactured almost-sister. But it felt like home, no matter how strange it sounded.

"So am I," whispered Willow.


	11. Eleven

The sunlight streaked across Buffy's room, unrestrained by the curtains she hadn't bothered to pull. It fell across the bed, sloppy from the night before, and sliced across Spike's face. It pulled him from his sleep as he felt it against his eyelids, piercing, painful, and realized, suddenly, that something was wrong.

The sun was burning him up.

"Jesus!" screamed Spike, diving off the bed into the shaded corner of the room. Frantically he reached up to slap the flames from his face and found … nothing. No fire, no burned patches. Not even a crispy eyelash. "What the hell?"

"What is it? What's wrong?" Buffy asked groggily, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes.

The throbbing in Spike's head told him well enough what it was. "Hangover," he growled, feeling stupid. He'd enjoyed enough of them as a vampire to know what they felt like, although he'd had to drink a shitload more in the past to get pissed. Say, a fifth. As opposed to the lousy half a pitcher he'd had the night before. Pathetic human constitution.

Buffy was having trouble focusing her eyes, so she shut them and massaged her temples. "What did we do last night?"

"Drank a little," Spike mumbled.

"I _mean_, did we have sex?" Buffy said, rolling her eyes before a shooting pain in her head made her stop all movement. 

Spike groaned.Wonderful. His first time as a human, and he couldn't even remember it. Assuming he'd even been sober enough to perform. 

He glanced down at himself. He hadn't gotten much of a sense of things, what with being worried about catching fire and all, but he _was_ wearing his jeans. "If we did, it was extremely safe sex," he offered, unsure whether to be relieved or not. He thought he was relieved. When he was sober, he'd probably be more sure.

Buffy didn't seem to have heard him. "I hurt," she whimpered, slumping back down and covering her eyes with her arms. 

Tenderness shot through him. "I'll take care of it, baby," he told her, struggling to his feet and feeling his way, eyes averted, to the window. He fumbled around until he found the curtain pull, and shut the drapes. "Better?"

Buffy sniffled and nodded. "Still hurts," she complained.

"I know how to do you," Spike reassured her, blinking as he became acclimated to the dim light. "Hold on a minute, love."

He made his way into the bathroom and rooted around in the medicine cabinet until he found a bottle of aspirin. He tucked it into his pocket, and slowly, carefully, made his way down the stairs into the kitchen.

He'd never disliked stairs more in his life. They were so high and steep—didn't seem safe, to have something like that right in the middle of a house, now did it? A health hazard. Many more nights like the last one and they should look into having an elevator installed.

Xander and Willow looked up at him from their breakfast as he entered and shambled past them.

"Uhh," he said by way of greeting.

Xander smothered a smile at Spike's obvious discomfort. Just because the guy was no longer an evil rampaging vampire, and just because Xander had evolved and everything, didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the blond's hangover. Schauden-something, there was nothing like it. "How you feeling there, buddy? There's some eggs left, if you're hungry. Scrambled, still kind of runny."

Spike tried not to gag as he fought back nausea at the image. "That's okay, I'm good," he managed, rummaging through the refrigerator and trying not to smell the eggs or anything else. "Got what I came for."

"Uh … yeah," said Xander, staring at the bottle Spike had pulled from the refrigerator. "You know what they say about beer—it's not just a breakfast drink." Willow glanced at him. "Or, you know, in this instance it kinda is."

"Hair of the dog that bit you," said Spike, and Willow laughed a little. Spike glanced at her. Something about last night niggled at him … something odd … like she was out with him and Buffy, except not that. More like….

Oh, Christ. "Red? Did we, uh … get into bed with you last night?"

She gave him a kind look. "Yeah, you kinda did."

"Sorry about that," he mumbled, looking down at the bottle in his hand. The apology would have been easier if he hadn't tried to bite her so many times. Bite her and worse. Kind of got in the way a little. "Didn't mean anything by it."

Willow nodded, blushing a little. Amazing how Spike could make her blush—she thought she'd gotten over that sometime around near-world-destroyage and everything. "It's okay, I know you weren't doing anything."

Spike nodded and started past her before a memory jolted. "And, uh, it's not because you're not pretty," he told her awkwardly, patting her shoulder with his free hand before drifting out of the kitchen, already working on the bottle top. As he disappeared, Willow could swear she heard him mutter that the beer cap was "made out of lead or something," and maybe Buffy would have better luck with it.

"What in the heck did that mean?" Xander asked in puzzlement, looking at Willow's blush deepen.

"He's just being nice," she mumbled, hoping he'd let it drop. She'd told the others, years before, about Spike's failure to perform when he attacked her after first being chipped, but she hadn't shared her fear that it was because she wasn't bitable. Partly because it was stupid, but mostly because it made her feel like a wallflower again, and after a couple of years of not being one, she didn't want to feel that way again.

She didn't think anybody would mistake her for a wallflower now. Wallflowers almost never dated musicians, or tried to end the world, or helped save the world. Or were loved by really neat people.

She wasn't anyone's wallflower.

But still, they didn't have to know about her little bitability-inadequacy fear.

"So what's the plan for the day?" Xander asked, to her relief; he'd accepted her answer.

"A little homework, a little settling in, a little … going over to my place—Kennedy's place—and picking up my stuff?" Willow suggested hopefully. "You're not working today, right?"

"No, I try not to work on Saturdays," Xander agreed dryly. "It's a little reward I give myself. Also, I usually give it to the guys, otherwise they might try to disembowel me. Or possibly something less pleasant."

"What's less pleasant than disemboweling?"

"Well, dating springs to mind." Which, when he thought of it, really wasn't the most tactful thing he could have said, so he hurried to add, "Sure, we'll get your stuff."

Willow smothered a sigh of relief. She could have asked Buffy, but things were always so tense between her and Kennedy—it would have been snap, snap, snap, the entire time. Usually Willow was able to handle it, but she just wasn't up to it now. Just seeing Kennedy would be bad enough.

For a moment panic threatened to swamp Willow. She didn't want to see Kennedy again, couldn't. It would be unbearably uncomfortable.

And now that she thought about it, it was probably completely unnecessary. Willow really didn't need her things at all. She could get new clothes, right? And new furniture. And new books, and magic supplies, and personal photos, and god, who was she kidding? She had to get her stuff. There were no two ways about it.

"Maybe we can phone first and make sure she's out," Willow said hopefully, getting up and putting their empty dishes into the sink. That would be better, right? It would be uncomfortable to do it with Kennedy there. Instead Kennedy would just come home and it would be over. More over. Over-er.

"Fine with me," Xander said. "Think the truck will hold everything?"

Willow smiled a little weakly. She had to do it, but the thought of going over there, separating her things from Kennedy's, nauseated her. It just seemed like too much, too hurtful to Kennedy, like insult on top of injury. But what was the alternative? "Too bad we didn't keep the school bus," she joked.

"Maybe you should make a list to be sure you get everything that's really important," suggested Xander.

Willow raised her eyebrows as she followed him out of the big kitchen. "Look who's being all organized," she marveled.

Xander winced. "Yeah, I've got a little more practice with the whole bitter breakup thing," he reminded her.

Willow didn't respond. He didn't really have more experience in the area. His were just more final. He'd broken up with Anya and Cordelia for good, but she'd been lucky enough to reunite with Oz, for a while, and with Tara. For one day—one wonderful day….

The sound of the front door slamming barely registered, so lost was Willow in her thoughts. It wasn't until she bumped into Xander that she snapped back to reality. 

Xander was frozen, staring. At Kennedy.

"Hey," she said casually.

Willow stared at her, horrified. Kennedy? Wasn't that some kind of breech of breakup etiquette, just dropping by and everything? It wasn't right, not at all. "H—hi," she answered, faltering.

Xander stared at the two of them. It was awkward as hell. Kennedy's body was stiff with pride, and Willow seemed to be shrinking back, as if she could disappear if she just tried hard enough.

Actually, Xander reminded himself, she _did_ know how to do that, so it wasn't really all that out there.

The two women continued staring at each other.

"I've got to, uh, see about the—the _thing_," Xander said, backing out of the room. "Will? Call if you need anything."

Neither woman bothered to watch his exit. Willow wished Kennedy _had_ looked at him, so she wouldn't be looking at Willow with that long, opaque stare that Willow couldn't read at all.

For a moment, stupidly, Willow wondered if she'd imagined breaking up with Kennedy. 'Cause she had—right? Otherwise she wouldn't have spent the night at Buffy's; she would have gone home, with Kennedy.

Right?

"We broke up, didn't we?" Willow blurted out. The second the words were out she clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified.

Kennedy's mouth twisted bitterly. "Yeah, _we _broke up."

Ouch. Okay. "Then why are you here?" asked Willow, unsure. Kennedy just continued to stare at her. "I mean, it's kind of awkward. And it's completely my fault!" she added in a rush. "My fault, but still, it's … you know, awkward."

Kennedy studied her silently, and Willow began to squirm a little under her close regard, which wasn't so unreadable now. Kennedy had never looked at her that way before. Cold and implacable. Actually, it was how she usually looked at Buffy.

Finally Kennedy broke the silence that followed Willow's little speech. "You may have broken up with me, but Giles is still my Watcher," she said coolly. "I don't really know how you thought this would work out, but I'm not going anywhere."

***

Buffy wandered into the kitchen, feeling almost normal. Slayer metabolism—it was a good thing, as insane-o craft queens and future felons said. Once Kennedy left, Buffy thought she'd go down and hit the bag a little, get her aggression out. She couldn't play-fight the way she used to with Spike; she'd just hurt him. He didn't have the strength and stamina he used to.

Idly she wondered if all his old stamina was gone. Because five hours? _Very_ nice.

She'd left Spike in the living room, reading old magazines while Andrew mumbled to himself and worked on his new game design and Dawn laid out her many bottles of nail polish and arranged them according to color, then according to preference, and then according to order in which she would wear them and would, perhaps, actually do her nails before the afternoon was over.

Spike said he wanted to catch up on things that happened while he'd been away. He'd held up a _Newsweek_ to convince her of his deep nature, but she could see one of Dawn's _Soap Opera Digests_ peeking out from beneath the stack of magazines. Like he cared how the economy was doing, as long as he knew whether whoever was doing … whatever on _Passions, _she thought in amusement.

"Mmm, Tab," Buffy murmured, opening a bottle. Was it wrong that she started the day with beer, and proceeded on to Tab? Somehow that just seemed off. And probably some time she should actually think about food, but that time was far, far in the future.

Her carbonated beverage musings were interrupted by Willow walking into the kitchen. "I told you, not today," Willow said over her shoulder. Xander followed her into the room a moment later, trailing after her as she got a bottle of water out of the fridge.

"Today's perfect," he argued. "Cut it off fast, cut it off clean. And we know she's not there, right?"

"I said _no!"_ Willow snapped, shutting the refrigerator door with a bang. "Leave it alone, Xander. We'll do it another day."

Xander opened his mouth to argue further, then shut it abruptly. She knew what she was doing, or at least what she wanted. And he was nobody to give breakup advice, was he? All he needed to do was go upstairs to remind himself of that one. "Fine," he told her finally. "Whenever you want to do it, Will. Just gimme a shout."

Willow managed a smile and nodded at him gratefully before he left the room. He was the best friend she could ever have; sometimes she felt guilty because she wanted to share things first with Buffy, ask her opinion first, when Xander had always been there for her. His advice wasn't always the greatest, but it was straight from the heart. It was the only way he knew how to do things.

It was what made him special.

"Will? Is everything okay?" asked Buffy gingerly as Willow sat down across from her.

"I broke up with Kennedy," Willow told her without preamble. She hoped her forthrightness would preempt any big talk about it—last night she'd wanted, desperately, to talk to Buffy, but Kennedy coming by the house had rattled her. So she really couldn't listen to any condolences, becau— 

"Thank god, I don't know how you stood her this long!" Buffy exclaimed. A moment later she realized what she'd said. "Oh god, Will, I'm sorry, I meant—"

To her surprise, Willow laughed a little. "That's what Andrew said when I told him," she admitted. "What, were you all just counting the days?"

Buffy looked sheepish. "Umm … no?"

Willow rolled her eyes. "Liar."

Contrition nipped at Buffy. "I'm sorry. I know it had to hurt." She couldn't resist adding, "Even if it's really really for the better."

"Yeah," Willow sighed. Everyone seemed in agreement about that, except maybe Kennedy. Whom she'd be seeing regularly for the rest of forever, apparently.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Willow shook her head. "I think I'm talked out for the moment."

The sharp ringing broke the silence in the kitchen. "Dawn will get it," Buffy said to Willow as she got up and crossed over to the phone. In fact, Dawn would probably hurt anyone who picked it up before her.

Willow ignored her. If she and Buffy sat there together much longer, Buffy would eventually badger all the details out of her, and she was too darn tired and frustrated and … and _something_ to deal with it now. She'd been so rattled when Kennedy had walked in that Xander had taken her out to lunch to settle her down, but it hadn't worked. Especially since she had a latte with lunch. She'd just make it through the day, and tomorrow, when things had settled down a bit, she'd tell Buffy everything and they'd eat ice cream and bond and be all best-friendy. Maybe Dawn could join them. But not today.

"Hello?" she said, picking up the receiver.

"Hi, Willow!" exclaimed a cheerful voice. Willow smiled, immediately pegging it as Fred Burkle, the really smart girl who worked with Angel and Wesley. Really really smart. Chris Epps smart, although hopefully Fred wasn't sewing dead bodies together or anything. Willow had met her a couple of times now, and sometimes Willow thought she'd never liked anyone as much as she did the wispy brunette. 

Except Buffy, Willow thought guiltily. And Xander, and Tara. And Oz. Well, she just liked her a lot, okay? 

"God, it's been so long," Fred continued. "Why don't you come by for the weekend some time? I could show you Wolfram & Hart—it's got everything! It's like being a kid in a candy store, except all the candy can kill you if you're not careful. Okay, that doesn't _sound_ good, but it really is, mostly."

Willow laughed. Fred was so cute. It was impossible not to be happy when you talked to her. "That sounds good," Willow admitted a little shyly. They'd had so much fun before, and Fred was so adorable. _Hey, maybe next weekend I can—okay, focus, _Willow lectured herself_. You just broke up with someone, that doesn't mean you have to leap into another relationship right away. Besides, we've still got to keep our eyes out for the thaumogenesis demon—make sure it didn't make a move towards Spike...._

Buffy automatically tuned Willow's voice out once she realized the call wasn't for her; she had her own stuff to think about. She was still a little embarrassed about the night before. 

It had all gone exactly according her plan, except not. Spike hadn't wanted to drink alone, so they got a pitcher—mistake number one. Buffy hardly touched it, knowing what alcohol did to her. Besides, she wanted to remain alert, to prevent anything from happening to Spike. And he exercised impressive self-restraint as well, pacing himself nicely and inhaling most of a blooming onion and a plate of jalapeno poppers with no help from Buffy.

Neither of them wanted to get drunk. Unfortunately, both of them had, very quickly.

Okay, that was probably the only mistake, but it was a biggie.

God, she was lucky. If something had happened—if the demon had attempted to strike—she couldn't have done a damn thing; she'd been too smashed to think clearly, much less dispatch a baddie.

After a few moments she became aware of Willow saying her name.

"Will? What is it?"

"That was Fred," said Willow dazedly.

"Fred? Fred from L.A.?"

"Yeah."

"What'd she want? A little quality quantum physics appreciation between kindred spirits?" suggested Buffy.

"Actually, she had a message for Kennedy," said Willow quietly.

"For Kennedy?" repeated Buffy in surprise.

"Yeah. Apparently they talked earlier. She wanted to tell her—" Willow broke off.

Buffy waited expectantly, but Willow didn't continue. "Wanted to tell her…?" Buffy prodded. 

"That she found out more on thaumogenesis."


	12. Twelve

Dawn blew on her newly lilac-colored fingernails, ignoring Spike and Andrew. Not that it was easy. When Spike was around, Andrew talked more than ever. Dawn wouldn't have thought it possible, but apparently it was. She would have liked to think that Spike might cool Andrew up, but that one was definitely impossible. Besides, she was actually kind of fond of the guy. Everybody else in the gang had someone special they were close to, but the two of them were just kind of these satellites around the main group. Sure, Buffy loved her, yeah, and so did Xander and Willow and probably Giles, but that didn't change anything. When all was said and done, she was Buffy's sister, period. They'd been a happy little group before she arrived, and if she weren't there, it wouldn't make much of a difference.

And Andrew, despite the fact that he'd paid for the house and was supporting all of them, was still the last and least of the trio of nerds. Tucker's brother, an afterthought. Occasionally Dawn thought she saw Buffy jump a little when she looked at Andrew, like she was surprised he was there.

The two of them were on the fringes, even if Andrew didn't realize it.

She thought of what Andrew had said once when they were watching a DVD of the original _Star Trek _series. Dawn had mentioned that a crewman was cute, even if he was drooling all over a blue-skinned alien babe in a feathered plastic bikini. Andrew had rolled his eyes and said, "Forget it, chica! He's a red shirt."

Crewmen who wore red shirts ended up dead, he told her. They were expendable. Not important enough to make the main cast.

She hadn't thought much of it at the time, but now it seemed so clear. She and Andrew were red shirts.

Dammit, she didn't want to be expendable! There had to be some way to become a blue shirt, or a green shirt, or whatever shirt was worn by people who didn't have "kill me" stamped on their forehead.

Hey, Xander had done it, hadn't he? He'd been the third wheel to the Buffy/Willow friendship, and had "demon bait" written all over him—look at how many he'd dated. But here he was, alive, and he'd ended up saving the world, when even Buffy couldn't. He'd overcome his red shirt destiny.

If he could do it, so could she. She was magical, right? A super-special key. She could save herself. And she'd better start right away; look at how things had gone for the last few years—well, her entire actual existence. Who had the thaumogenesis demon attacked? Her! Who had Glory gone after? Her! Who had Willow tried to kill? H—

Okay, all of them. But her first!

It was a pattern: go for Dawn. It was sheer luck that she wasn't already dead. And that … well, it just sucked.

Maybe she and Andrew could go in it together—watch each other's backs. She felt reasonably sure he didn't want to die anymore than she did. It was probably on his mind as much as hers, disturbing him. Haunting him.

"—well, I don't know about an _elevator_," Andrew was saying. "But escalators are fun…."

What? "Escalators? Where?" asked Dawn.

"Over there," said Spike, waving at the wall. "Escalators are okay, but the good thing about an elevator is that it doesn't work unless you push a button. What would happen if you were sleepy or pissed and accidentally stepped on an escalator?"

Andrew's eyes grew large. "You could plummet to your death," he realized in a whisper, shuddering. He tended to sleepwalk, and the last thing he wanted to do was wake up dead because they'd installed an escalator. But it was so tempting—they had the money, and why not use it? If not on an escalator, then wha—"Oh!" he exclaimed. The others looked at him inquiringly. "We could put in a fireman's pole," he said dreamily.

Spike scowled. That did nothing to help with the dangers of taking the stairs while hung over. "Yeah, I don't really think that's—"

"Like in _Bridget Jones's Diary_?" asked Dawn, sounding more enthusiastic.

"Yeah! We could take turns—"

"We are not installing a pole," said Giles flatly, entering the room, a book dangling from his hand. Andrew heaved a sigh. It was nice, having a dad—_dad-like figure_, he corrected himself—who was so involved, but Mr. Giles was so strict sometimes. He was just like he had been in the library at school, only now he glared more often.

"Kennedy. Where is she?" Buffy asked curtly, standing in the doorway. Willow stood beside her, her face anxious.

"She left," answered Giles, his voice tired. It hadn't been a pleasant afternoon, and he thought he might require aspirin. Or possibly something in the Vicodin family.

"Left? She usually stays a lot later," Buffy protested.

"Yeah, but that was when she and Willow were all relationshippy, and not let's-just-be-friendshippy," pointed out Andrew helpfully. Willow colored at the remark, and Buffy fought against grinding her teeth. There was no reason to be impatient with Willow, of course, just because she felt bad about breaking up with her girlfriend who was, oh yeah, _gunning for Spike._

"What's so urgent?" asked Spike, raising his eyebrows.

"She, uh … borrowed my good axe," lied Buffy shamelessly. As far as she was concerned, lying for a good cause was completely acceptable. Unfortunately, however, she wasn't great at it. And Spike usually saw through her lies—he was a very perceptive guy. Unless, of course, she was telling him she loved him, at which point he displayed all the perceptivity of a block of wood. A block of wood that didn't believe his girlfriend when she said she loved him.

But he must have been absorbed in catching up with his shows, because he lost interest and returned his attention to the magazine in his hand. "Yeah, gotta get that one back," he said absently, flipping the page to find out god knows what.

"Yeah, I think I'll go get it now," Buffy agreed, heading outside while the getting was good. If she lingered, he might have asked more questions, and she might not come up with anything as good as a borrowed axe next time.

"Buffy, hold on. It doesn't necessarily mean anything," Willow argued, hurrying after her before the front door closed.

"It means she went behind our backs."

"It's just that she hates being left in the dark—"

"We didn't leave her in the dark—we told her the same thing we told everyone else, and everyone else was fine with it," Buffy pointed out reasonably. "She's the one who had to go digging about the thaumogenesis demon. We told her it would disappear on its own, but she didn't like that, did she?"

Buffy's face was set, and the look of awful determination on her face frightened Willow. "Look, don't jump to conclusions," Willow babbled desperately.

"I'm not jumping to anything. The demon has to kill Spike to stay around. Now Kennedy knows all she has to do is—"

"That doesn't mean it's her," protested Willow. God, Buffy was so—when it was somebody someone else cared about, like Kennedy or Anya, Buffy was right there, ready to mete out pitiless Slayer justice. It was a different story when it was someone Buffy cared about. Spike or Angel, or even Willow herself. Sometimes she needed to be reeled in. Because just because someone did something Buffy didn't understand, even something really wrong, didn't mean she had to kill them. It wasn't like that, wasn't black and white.

Hardly anything was.

Buffy was silent for a moment, absorbing Willow's words. She glanced back at the house, filled with people she loved. Her sister, her Watcher. Her friends.

Her Spike, dammit.

"You're right," she sighed. Before Willow could breathe a sigh of relief, Buffy's gaze hardened. "But I'm not taking any chances."

Spike eased the front door shut, closing out Willow's pleas that Buffy calm down before confronting Kennedy. He didn't have to hear the rest of their conversation; he'd heard enough.

He was going to die, apparently. Possibly horribly.

Good to know.

It wasn't a surprise; he'd always known he was mortal. Even when he was newly vamped and loved to taunt Angel about his prissy, safe kills, he'd known his life had hung precariously between dust and eternal youth.

That was what gave the fight its tang. If the risk wasn't there, neither was the thrill.

But still … wasn't like being human. As a vampire, it was sunlight, a stake, or beheading. That was it. Well, there was also removing the heart from the body, at least according to the Master, the old pervert. But nobody remembered the tried and true methods any more, just the flashy Stoker stuff. Sad, really.

But as a human there were so many ways to die that it was miracle he was still breathing. Influenza could kill him, or a car accident, or black lung disease. Did they still have black lung disease? Or that Chinese food the other night! He'd been to China, he knew the kinds of things they ate. Or spontaneous combustion—Christ, he hadn't even _thought _of that one. For a few moments he held his breath, then realized it did nothing to decrease his chances of suddenly bursting into flames.

And now, apparently, death-by-rebirth was on the list as well. Kind of appropriate, wasn't it? The death of others used to give him life, and now his death would give life to the thaumogenesis demon. Yeah, it was poetic justice all right.

Spike leaned his head back against the door and sighed. God, he _hated_ poetry.

Xander pushed his face deeper into his pillow and tried to hold onto sleep. He wasn't dreaming anything pleasant—wasn't dreaming anything at all—but it was a refuge. When he was asleep, he didn't have to open his eyes and see his dead girlfriend.

The effort was futile, of course. It always had been. He'd open his eyes and she'd be there, or not—whichever left him more on edge.

Stop it, he told himself harshly. That wasn't him, was it? He was an optimist. If he wasn't, he would have killed himself a long time ago. His parents would have been enough to do it, but there was always staking his buddy Jesse to add to the list, or losing Cordy—god, he'd barely survived that one. Now she was in a coma, as good as dead. He'd lost an eye—good old lefty. And Anya was gone, and he'd never even had a chance to say goodbye, or see her body. Life just kept getting worse and worse, and he didn't even want to know what form of _worse _was coming down the road next.

Yeah, if he weren't such an optimist, this would be a great time to kill himself, he thought hazily, beginning to drift off again. It would sure make things a lot easier.

"Yeah, pal, it's not like you've got a lot to live for," agreed Jesse.

Xander's eyes shot open and he leapt up, his breathing suddenly ragged.

He was alone in the room.

Xander willed his heart to stop racing. It had been nothing. A nightmare, that's all it was. Well, a daymare. A napmare. A bad dream.

He jumped slightly as the phone beside the bed rang, then snatched up the receiver._ That_ was reality, not whatever had drifted through his head when he was mostly asleep. "Hello?'

"Xander? It's been so long." The voice at the other end of the line was clear, distinct. It did not sound like a dream.

It sounded like Cordelia.


	13. Thirteen

"He hung up on me!" Cordelia said, staring at the phone in her hand in disbelief. What, they hadn't talked in a few years and suddenly she was someone Xander felt comfortable hanging up on?

Lorne clucked sympathetically. "Well, I'm sure he didn't—"

"Xander Harris does _not _hang up on Cordelia Chase," she announced irately, pressing the redial button. "Xander? Xander Harris, don't you hang—_son of a bitch!_"

"Do it again, sweet cheeks?"

Cordy scowled at Lorne. "What do you think?" she snapped.

Xander came down the stairs so fast he stumbled into the living room. Andrew gasped as he watched Xander's hurried descent, fully expecting the heart of the Scooby gang to be ripped out with a tragic fall which no magic, no matter how dark or forbidden, could repair. "Did you see that, Mr. Giles? Spike was right!"

"Spike is never right," said Giles automatically.

"About the escalator, I mean—"

"We are _not_ having an escalator installed."

"Everything okay?" asked Dawn, ignoring the byplay. Xander looked kind of wild-eyed. Not really Xandery, actually.

The phone rang before Xander could reply. "I'll get it!" cried Andrew. "It's rung a bunch of times, I bet the phone company's doing something—they're just mad because I wouldn't sign up for their DSL—I mean, it's slow as molasses.…Hello? Oh, hold on! It's for you," he told Xander, holding out the phone. "It's Cordelia Chase!" Andrew couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice; Cordelia had never spoken to him before. She'd been a cheerleader at Sunnydale High, and almost homecoming queen.

Giles and Dawn started in surprise. The last they'd heard, Cordelia was a vegetable. An impeccably groomed vegetable, gradually fading into memory.

Xander looked shocked as well. "You can hear her?"

"Yeah. And she sounds really mad," added Andrew.

Xander took the phone as Dawn began chattering excitedly.

"Cordelia?" Xander asked gingerly.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, HANGING UP ON—"

Xander hastily pulled the phone back from his ear. "I was just, uh, a little surprised."

"And surprise makes you hang up … _twice_? I didn't think it was possible, but you're even more spastic than you used to be."

"I'm sorry," Xander apologized, still feeling dazed by the whole dead girlfriend/not dead ex-girlfriend dynamic. "I just—the last thing I heard, you were still in the coma."

Cordelia abruptly stopped raging. "You thought I was—they didn't _tell _you?" Her voice dropped several degrees and promised heads would roll. Now she was just an _afterthought_, was she? That was it! "Look, I had a vision."

"What—"

"About Kennedy."

"What about Kennedy?" asked Xander in surprise.

"Kennedy—danger."

"What else?"

"That's it," answered Cordelia. "Oh—except…."

"What?"

"Who's Kennedy?"

Xander chuckled a little. The answer seemed so mundane compared to the rest of his life. "Willow's girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend."

"Oh. Okay, then. Just an FYI," said Cordy absently, hanging up. A second later his statement sank in.

"Wait, did he say Willow likes girls?"

Lorne looked at her, bemused, and shrugged.

"Well, just how long was I unconscious?"

Giles decided to skip the aspirin and go straight to the Scotch. Yes, Cordelia was alive. It was fine news. He didn't know why he'd been startled—people returned from the dead almost daily, it seemed; waking from a coma was barely worth mentioning, by comparison. News only fit for wrapping fish.

Besides, there was plenty more to worry about, if he was of a mind to worry. And it seemed he was.

Training had been a disaster. Which, admittedly, had been his fault. Of course, if anyone had bothered to tell him that Kennedy and Willow had broken up, he likely wouldn't have asked Kennedy why Willow had spent the night at the house. And he probably wouldn't have asked, when Kennedy told him they had broken up, where she intended to go. Which he had only said because he was surprised, and never dreamed she intended to stay if she was no longer seeing Willow. And which was a mistake.

Kennedy had bitterly accused him of hating her—him and Buffy and Xander and all the rest. Of not supporting her. Of not wanting her there.

The unfortunate thing was that she was right.

He didn't hate her, of course. But he was becoming old for a Watcher, or at least he felt that way. He'd been shepherding Buffy for nearly seven years, her and her entire pack of friends. He'd lost his girl twice. Jenny had been stolen from him. He'd mentored and fought an unimaginably powerful witch, and suffered the loss of most of his friends and colleagues in the destruction of the Watchers' compound. By the end of it he'd been reamed. He'd been offered the leadership of the council, but had turned it down. He was too exhausted to consider running it. The other survivors were training fresh blood—fresh Watchers, that was to say.

And as selfish as it sounded, he'd only ever been Buffy's Watcher, and that was how he wanted it. She would be the last Slayer for him—first and last. It was a system rooted in control and manipulation, an endless cycle of planning and fighting, and he was weary of it. He was an academic, not a drill sergeant, and he was weary of betraying his nature to fulfill his family's traditions.

Maybe Buffy had been right about letting the girls train as they wanted, not indoctrinating them as the earlier Slayers had been. The way Kendra had. The way Buffy would have, if she'd been found earlier.

There'd been too many blank-eyed automatons forced to fight and die.

He'd remain with Buffy—he wouldn't desert her again—but that was the end of it for him. He would take on no further responsibilities. God, sometimes he felt so tired. Like it was no use anymore. Like giving up. Sometimes it was almost irresistible. He had to fight against it, and sometimes he was just so weary of fighting. Giving up was so tempting.

He should have been hopeful, now. He'd been trained—raised—to view good versus evil as an eternal struggle. But now there was an army of Slayers, and so much could be done. Evil could be fought on so many fronts, in so many ways. For the first time, the possibility of crushing darkness seemed viable. Maybe not soon, but someday.

Yet for some reason, it didn't excite him.

Yes, he was indeed growing old. Too old for this foolishness, this soap opera. Too old for it all.

_Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to happen_, Willow told herself over and over again. Because if she said if often enough it would be true, right? Kennedy was not possessed by the thaumogenesis demon, and she didn't want to kill Spike; Buffy wasn't going to kill Kennedy in a righteous rage, or be killed by her instead. Nothing was going to happen. Nothing.

Willow turned back to the house and opened the front door disconsolately—then jumped aside hastily as Spike fell back, almost smacking into her. He'd been leaning against the door, apparently. Probably listening. _God, what is it with Buffy and lurky guys_? Willow wondered.

They traded suspicious looks. "What are you doing?" Willow asked.

"What are _you_ doing?' returned Spike.

"…Waving goodbye to Buffy?" suggested Willow after a minute. "You didn't hear anything, did you? Not, uh, that there was anything to hear," she added hurriedly.

Spike's mouth tightened, and that was enough of a giveaway. "You know!" she blurted out. "Oh no, Buffy didn't want you to know—she's gonna be so angry!"

"Just because I found out your bird's looking to kill me?" Spike asked dryly. Seemed that he was the one who should be upset, not Willow. She always had been a little dramatic, though—what with casting spells over old boyfriends and trying to end the world over dead girlfriends and who knew what else.

On second thought, maybe he should try not to piss her off.

"She's not trying to kill you—probably," Willow denied. "Just maybe. We don't even know if she's the demon."

"So, _maybe_ Kennedy's the demon, and _maybe_ she'll try to kill me, and if not, it was all just a big misunderstanding?"

"We don't even know she's the thaumogenesis demon!" repeated Willow in frustration. Why didn't they listen to her?!

"Kennedy's the thaumogenesis demon?" exclaimed Giles, standing in the doorway to the living room, his fingers clasped tightly around a glass of something brownish that Spike suddenly, desperately wanted a gulp of. "And she wants to kill Spike?"

"We don't know that," rushed out Willow as Spike swore. "But, uh, she might be, and, uh, she might be under the impression that killing him is the way to go. But she might not!"

"Why the devil wasn't I told this earlier?" demanded Giles, incensed.

"Jesus, Will, you told him?" said Xander, shouldering his way out from behind Giles.

Spike felt tension ripple down his forehead and tensed in anticipation of vamping out. But nothing happened, and the realization that it was just a miserable headache—a hangover, followed by an unexpected and not especially welcome update on his mortality—only made him feel worse. Biting something had never sounded so tempting. "Why don't you just call the others and make it a convention?" suggested Spike cautistically.

The others ignored him. "_You_ knew?" said Giles to Xander, sounding aggrieved. "Did everyone but me know that that Kennedy wants to kill Spike?"

"Kennedy wants to kill Spike?" repeated Andrew, hidden behind Giles. "I mean, I knew she didn't like him, but she doesn't like_ anyone_—my god, are the rest of us in danger?"

Beside Andrew, Dawn clapped her hand over her mouth; she recalled, suddenly, why Buffy had killed the thaumogenesis demon years before. Because it was going to try to kill her in order to stay alive.

"Is she the thaumogenesis demon?" blurted out Dawn, nudging Andrew and Giles out of the way to stare at Spike. He'd just come back, and she was losing him again. If it were a couple of years earlier, the thought would have terrified her. But that was before he slept with Anya, before he attacked Buffy. Before he came back quiet and timid with his soul. Before he died. Back when she still thought she knew him, and he'd teach her the finer points of shoplifting and iambic pentameter.

She didn't know why the thought of losing him again upset her, but it did.

"Oh, bloody hell," barked Spike in frustration. He'd thought the Scoobies bad before, but now they were worse, the whole lot of them, living together and in each other's pockets the whole time. Couldn't keep a secret, couldn't have a good row, probably couldn't shag without the whole company listening in. No privacy, someone's finger in your pie every minute of your life until you were ready to go insane. The rest of them watching you like a bug, a science experiment, and Spike had already had plenty of being a goddamn experiment. Gotten sick of that quite a few years ago, as it happened, and had no intention of being a fly under their thumb—a butterfly under their micro—whatever the hell those things were, _god_, did becoming human kill his brain cells somehow?

"That's it," Spike muttered, swinging away from the others and heading out the door. Someone put a hand on his arm, but he shrugged it off without even a glance. "I want a bloody _drink_," he grated. "_Alone_."

The house was loud and buzzy for several minutes after Spike's dramatic exit. People talked, Dawn fussed, Giles lectured. At his insistence Willow revealed the texts she'd made invisible. The look he'd given her—so disappointed, so distant—when she'd made his books reappear had made her want to cry. Now everybody knew what Buffy had wanted to keep hidden, and god knew what was happening to Kennedy.

Giles was poring over his books, a stormcloud over his head, when Willow slipped away. She tried to suppress the feeling that she was doing something wrong. It wasn't wrong. Couldn't be. Could it? She was protecting Kennedy. And protecting people from Kennedy. That couldn't be wrong, could it?

Her fingers shook as she lit the little brazier. She hadn't bothered to take it with her when she moved into the apartment, months ago—she had plenty. And maybe if she didn't move all her stuff, maybe she was really still here, and just spending nights at the apartment.

Maybe she'd known, deep down in her heart, that it wasn't going to work between her and Kennedy.

But that didn't mean she'd stopped caring about her.

"Stay their hands, and still their hearts," she murmured softly. "Let them do no violence this night." She reached for the bags of herbs she'd placed beside her, but her hand stilled. Was this … _it?_ What Tara had warned her about? Why she left her? Using her magic casually, selfishly?

But it wasn't selfish, was it? And it wasn't casual. If it protected Kennedy (…_or Spike_, _or Buffy_, thought Willow), it wasn't casual. Maybe it was selfish, but Willow couldn't believe it was wrong. Tara had been right about it, then.

But this was now, and Willow had to find her own way.

For a moment Willow wondered if they'd still be together if Tara hadn't died. After a moment the thought sunk in and she shoved it aside, reproaching herself bitterly. Of course they would still be together. Of course. Their love was eternal.

Like her and Oz? Or Buffy and Angel?

_Maybe nothing's eternal_, thought Willow, disheartened. _Maybe it's all an illusion_.

But even if it was, it was still all they had.

Willow dropped the herbs into the flames, and they crisped and smoked as she repeated the magical words. The smoke wisped above her head and dissipated in the cool autumn air allowed in by her open window. It was done.

It was all she could do. Now she could only wait and—

"Willow?" Giles's sudden question made her jump. "What have you done?"

Kennedy smacked at the punching bag moodily. If she could work up a little rage it would help, but at the moment she just felt like laying down and crying. At first she'd told herself that Willow would change her mind, that it was a weird little Scooby thing/Wicca thing/who-the-hell-ever thing, but she'd been kidding herself. Willow wasn't going to change her mind; she was back in the smothering bosom of her friends, content to be merely a sidekick. A supporting player. How was it that Willow couldn't see she deserved more?

It was _them_. The others. They hated Kennedy. It had to be them. She loved Willow so much—the strong, powerful parts, and the sweet, shy parts—Willow had to know that, had to see. Had to feel how much she loved her. But she cared about_ them_ more.

God, it hurt to come in second.

Salt stung her eyes, and she sucked in her breath, forcing the tears back. She didn't want to be sad. Sadness didn't help anything. She wanted to be angry, because then she'd have something to fight against. Thank god for the thaumogenesis demon.

Christ, did she just thank god for a demon? She really had gone off the deep end.

She thought back on what Fred had told her—supplementing the little Buffy and Willow had seen fit to share; Kennedy had known immediately it had to be more than they said. It could assume any form it wanted, create weird illusions … and live in this reality permanently if it killed the one the magic that created it was done for. In this case, Spike.

Looks like Buffy was protecting her boyfriend again. It was a little thing she did, thought Kennedy bitterly, punching the bag harder. Protect her boyfriend, and keep things to herself. Just some of the little things that made Buffy _Buffy_.

God, she didn't even know why Willow liked her. "Buffy, Buffy, Buffy," Kennedy spat, punching harder and harder. "Why is it always about _Buffy_?" She pulled back for a killer punch, but it never connected. As she swung, a strong hand caught hers in an ungiving grip, holding it immobile.

"Looks like you get your wish," Buffy said with a dangerous smile. "Because this one's all about you."


	14. Fourteen

"I'm not doing magic!" Willow rushed out, then colored at both her obvious lie and her equally naked attempt at placating Giles. "I mean, yeah, I'm doing magic, but it's good magic! Good, non-selfish magic."

"Would Buffy and Kennedy think it's good, non-selfish magic?" Giles challenged. Willow cringed; he'd heard the whole thing, apparently.

"I just want them to be safe," Willow argued. "Tomorrow things will calm down, and everything will be fine." Willow had the feeling she was being somewhat optimistic, but she squashed the thought ruthlessly.

"I think you may be severely overestimating the value of a night's sleep," Giles said dryly.

"It's for the best," she insisted.

Giles's eyes sparked. "Your judgment in that area hasn't always been stellar."

Willow bowed her head, frustrated. What could she say? No matter what she did, no matter how tightly she reigned in her magical impulses, trying to destroy the world was something people didn't just forget. What could she say—_hey, I'm not nearly as homicidal as I was a year ago! _She'd tried to kill them, all of them. She hated thinking about it, hated being reminded of it, but she didn't deserve not to have it thrown in her face. If she thought that, she wasn't sorry enough.

But still, she had to try. "You … you encouraged me to do more magic, not to let myself be crippled by what happened after … after…."

"That was about controlling the power within you," corrected Giles. "This is about manipulating people."

"This is about _protecting_ people!" Willow countered.

Giles eyed her keenly. "Two minutes ago you undid your spell to hide my books, and already you're up here casting a new spell. And if you really thought it harmless," he added as she opened her mouth to interrupt, "I wonder that you're doing it hidden away up here, with the door shut, without the consent of those affected. I can't help but think that's the kind of thing you would have done when you first began misusing magic."

"This is different!" _It was, wasn't it?_ thought Willow desperately. _It had to be._

Giles smiled slightly, a joyless expression. "It always is, isn't it?"

Willow was silent as Giles left the room.

She couldn't think of anything to say.

Dawn liked Cordelia—and why not? Cordelia had always been nice to her. And sometimes she'd been pretty mean to Buffy, and Dawn had kind of appreciated it. Which was, admittedly, petty, but she'd grown out of it. Right?

But that didn't mean she wanted to hear twenty minutes straight about how talking to Cordelia was the high point of Andrew's existence. "That's great," Dawn said, interrupting Andrew mid-stream. It was still about Cordy, but she'd stopped listening to specifics a few minutes ago. She had more important things to worry about. "Did you notice anything?"

Andrew pondered that for a minute. "I think she sounded taller," he offered.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "I _mean_, about Xander when he came downstairs—he seemed scared."

"Well I'd be scared, too, if Cordelia was as mad at me as she sounded at him," Andrew reassured her.

"_No_," said Dawn, although she winced at the memory of Cordelia's wrath. "_Really _scared, even before he got the call. Remember how he came down the stairs? He's frightened of something—something big."

"Well, there is the whole Spike-in-jeopardy scenario," suggested Andrew. "That kind of scares me."

Dawn shook her head. "He's been dealing with that kind of thing for years. This has to be bigger."

"Killing Spike is big," pointed out Andrew.

"Well yeah, but not to Xander so much."

Andrew was silent for a minute, working through it all. "They didn't tell us that much, though," he said finally. He hated being out of the loop. That had been the best thing about the Trio—he'd been in on everything. He'd been Number One, Riker to Warren's Picard. Now, sometimes, he felt like … _Barclay_. He hated being Barclay. He'd been Barclay his entire life.

"Maybe there's something else they're not telling us," said Dawn quietly.

"Or maybe there's something they don't _know_," suggested Andrew.

Dawn's eyebrows swooped down. Not know? The others not know? Buffy and Giles and all of them _not know?_ That couldn't be good. "We have to take care of it," she said authoritatively.

Andrew cringed. He wasn't really very action-y, he was really more commentator-ish. "I think we should leave it to the others," he said. "They know what they're doing."

"You just said maybe they don't know," pointed out Dawn.

"Well okay, but you … you confused me!" accused Andrew.

Dawn shook her head. "Andrew, we have to handle it. We, us. We don't have a choice, we're red shirts!"

Andrew's jaw dropped. "That's not true—we are _not_ red shirts!" he protested. "We're valuable and high-ranking crewmembers whose loss would deal a fatal blow to the show—I mean, the Scoobies," he added hurriedly, ignoring his Barclayish feeling from the moment before. "Like Tasha times ten!"

That was true, right? He was important, to all of them. They all knew his name, and loved him, and relied on him; he couldn't be a red shirt, he wasn't just there, on the outside, he was—

_Thud.___

Andrew's train of thought derailed when Xander walked right into him. "Sorry, pal, I didn't see you there," Xander said over his shoulder, not slowing down, or using Andrew's name, or even really looking at him.

Andrew gasped. "Oh my god, I _am_ a red shirt," he whispered.

Dawn gave him a good hard stare. "Then don't you think it's time to do something about it?"

Andrew hesitated—so long she thought he'd forgotten what they were discussing. Then his sheepish gaze hardened, and he nodded. "All for one?" he asked, holding out his hand.

Dawn covered it with her own. "And one for all."

"What do you think you're doing?" asked Buffy coldly.

"I'm working out," Kennedy snapped, jerking her arm back and freeing herself from Buffy's grasp.

"You know what I mean," said Buffy.

"What? I'm not like the others, I don't spend so much time worshipping the great god Buffy that I know what you're thinking all the time, so you might actually have to use _words_ to tell me what you mean," said Kennedy in annoyance.

Buffy lost her patience. She'd never had much with Kennedy anyway, and it had all been used up. Her mouthiness, her constant pushing, her leading the others in throwing Buffy out of _her own house_—this was it! "Stay away from Spike," Buffy gritted.

Kennedy raised her eyebrows. "Sorry to break it to you, but he's not enough to turn me."

Something inside Buffy snapped and she lunged forward, grabbing Kennedy by the shoulders and shoving her against the wall. "Stay. Away. From. Spike."

Kennedy tried to shake her off, but Buffy held her in an unforgiving grasp. "Let _go_," demanded Kennedy, squirming.

"I'll let go when I'm good and ready. Did you hear me?" Buffy added, giving Kennedy a shake for emphasis.

"You're a psycho!" gasped Kennedy, panic beginning to enter her eyes.

"I _know _what you did—I know you were digging around about thaumogenesis behind our backs. And you know what, Kennedy? I think it's time you headed out of here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's time to pack your bags and clear out," Buffy spat. "Go back to your family, go to the Watchers' compound in England, set up camp on the ruins of Sunnydale—I don't really give a damn. Just get out."

"What? Like this town isn't big enough for the both of us?" Kennedy said in disbelief.

"That's_ exactly_ what I mean."

"It's a free country—I can live where I want," Kennedy protested.

"Think so?" Buffy mocked, her face right in Kennedy's. "Think again, little girl. I have _had it _with you. Do you know why Willow thinks I'm here?" She didn't even wait for an answer. "She thinks I'm going to kill you."

Kennedy stilled.

"But I'm not. I'm here to warn you: I'm sick of games, and I'm sick of playing around. You get out of town, now, or I promise you … there'll be hell to pay."

Willow tapped her finger against her laptop impatiently. When she was squirrelly, she took comfort in being online. It soothed her, for some reason—maybe because computers were the first thing she excelled at, the first thing she won praise for. The first way she was able to help the gang.

And now, with the others scattered—angry, despondent—Willow didn't feel nervous at all. Not a bit. Just because they were all demon-ridden, and Giles was in his study with the door locked and steam coming out of his ears, and Xander said he'd go crazy if he stayed there a moment longer, and Dawn and Andrew had "very important shopping to do," according to Andrew, and Spike was god knew where drinking, and Buffy and Kennedy were probably at each other's throats, nope, she wasn't at all anxious.

"Will?"

Willow screeched and jumped up from the kitchen table, knocking the computer screen and hastily grabbing the laptop to prevent further damage.

"Is everything okay?" asked Buffy, frowning.

"Fine!" gasped Willow. "How'd it go?"

Buffy shrugged. She wasn't proud of what she'd done—she'd practically threatened Kennedy (_Practically?_ her conscience taunted her_. What part of "Get out of town or there'll be hell to pay" isn't a threat?), _which made her feel guilty. She didn't own the town, and god knew she hadn't liked it when Angel ordered her out of L.A. a few years back. Even if it hadn't been about Faith, even if it hadn't been Angel, she wouldn't have liked it.

And for all she knew, Kennedy wasn't even the demon. It could have leapt out of her body and into someone else's, or maybe it was never in her at all. Maybe it was just floating around, gunning for Spike.

But what the hell did Kennedy hope to accomplish, hanging around a bunch of people who didn't like her? Inflicting herself on them, just because she could? Even if she wasn't the demon, what was the point? To hold onto a relationship that was dead? Buffy'd had enough experience with that to know it didn't work, and would just make everyone involved miserable.

Maybe she should have said some of those things to Kennedy, instead of just, _Get out of town, now!_

But all she had to do to tamp down her squishy feelings of regret was think of the thaumogenesis demon, two years before, beating the life out of her. She was the Slayer, and she'd barely been able to defeat it. Spike didn't have a chance—so she wouldn't_ take_ a chance. "Where is everybody?"

Willow squirmed. "Well, Giles is in his study, and everybody else is out."

"Out—what, to dinner? Why didn't they wait?"

"Umm … they kind of went out separately. Spike said something about getting a drink," Willow said vaguely.

"A drink? Why would he want a drink, after getting plastered last night and being hungover all day? That doesn't make sense," Buffy protested.

Okay, this was the part Willow hadn't been looking forward to. "He was kind of upset," she admitted.

Buffy frowned. "Upset? Why?"

Willow drew a deep breath. "Because-he-found-out-the-thaumogenesis-demon-might-want-to-kill-him," she rushed out.

Buffy scowled. Of course! Of course, what else could it have been, except exactly what she didn't want him to know? "How'd he find out?"

"He was listening at the door when we were arguing, before you left." Willow cringed a little. Buffy was getting redder and redder, like her head might explode.

"Dammit!"

"He was kind of calm about it at first," Willow assured her hastily. "But then the others came in and there was kind of a scene and some shouting, and he became kind of upset."

Buffy went still. "So let me get this straight … _everybody_ knows? So if the demon was in _any_ of us, it knows about killing Spike?"

Willow nodded miserably.

Without another word Buffy turned and headed back the way she'd come.

"Where are you going?" Willow asked worriedly.

"To make sure he's okay," said Buffy swiftly. She didn't question her ferocity; it was enough that she felt it. Understanding would come later.

It had been years since she'd felt so driven to protect someone besides Dawn. But he could be anywhere.

He could be in danger, and not even know it.

He wasn't at the Plasma, the club Buffy had taken him to the night before. Unfortunately, that represented the sum total of the bars in town that Spike knew.

He has a sixth sense about bars, Buffy thought crankily. A bar sense. The ability to pick out even the smallest, most hidden watering hole and make himself at home. Maybe he'd even found a demon bar Buffy wasn't aware of, thinking it would be like old times.

Only now he wasn't a demon; he was prey. Not just to the thaumogenesis demon, but to the lowliest fledgling. And no matter how weak or untried, they were _still_ stronger than him.

Oh, god.

Buffy began to run.

She never imagined Santa Rita had so many nooks and crannies, or so many bars. And she never imagined she'd be walking around for so many hours, still looking for Spike.

The sounds of retching coming from a nearby alley drew Buffy's attention for a moment. Lovely, just—"Spike!" gasped Buffy, starting towards him.

Spike wiped the bile from his mouth as his stomach finally stopped heaving.

"Spike, what are you doing?" she scolded, helping him clamber to his feet.

"What are you, my mother?" he returned sullenly, jerking away from her and swaying on his feet. "Next I suppose you'll want a shag."

Buffy blinked. His train of thought eluded her, but it probably made some kind of sense to his whiskey-soaked brain. "Not right now," she said dryly, steering him out of the alley.

He slipped his arm around her, fondling the sharp thrust of her hipbone. Apparently the word s_hag_ was enough to change his mood entirely. "We've had some good times in alleys, haven't we?" he slurred, bumping up against her and letting her know that he might be drunk, but wasn't incapable. "Met in an alley. Told you I'd kill you, remember? And that time outside the Bronze?"

"That was outside the Bronze," she reminded him.

"Not that time! The time we'd just dusted a couple of vamps and you were mad 'cause I copped a feel in front of that girl we saved. You said—you said—"

"I don't—"

"Said it just proved I couldn't love, because if I did I'd stop making things harder for you. Said you were miserable and I was making things worse."

Buffy flushed. She knew, now, that his love for her had been real. It had sent him to Africa—his love and his guilt. She'd been so sure no one could love without a soul, but she'd been an idiot. A smug, prejudiced idiot, holding onto a panacea for pains long past.

"Spike—"

"But that didn't stop you from unbuttoning my jeans, now did it? Just made it easier for you to leave me afterwards. Easier to step over me and go back to your friends and your lily-white life."

"I'm not leaving you now, Spike," she pointed out softly. She had much to regret, but she couldn't think about it, not now, maybe not ever. If she thought about it, she'd never get out of bed in the morning. Bad decisions, stupid actions, cruel words.

"Sure, you're not leaving me. Got a soul now, don't I?" Soul, fucking double-edged sword. Punished him from the moment he got it. Made sure he wouldn't hurt her again. Made it possible for her to love him, maybe. Someday.

Made him realize, more than anything, how hopeless his love for her had been. He could have loved her until the sky fell, and she would never have loved him back. He had thrown his love away on her, and it hurt, it hurt.

He mumbled something she didn't catch, and she leaned closer. "What?"

"'Desire of the moth for the star,'" he said muzzily.

"What? What star?" asked Buffy, glancing up. "What _moth?"_ He was drunker than she'd thought, apparently.

"'The devotion to something afar,'" he continued.

"Devotion to a star?" Buffy clarified, humoring him.

"To something hopeless. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless."

Well, that didn't sound good. "Nothing's hopeless," she said briskly, continuing to guide him home.

"Everything's hopeless," he corrected her, his voice sounding clear for a moment. "Everything."


	15. Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Xander's head hurt. And his eyes. And his fingers. Okay, most of him hurt. He really didn't feel that good about driving at the moment, but it was still better than being at home.

It didn't really help with the nausea, though.

"Maybe we should have brought Buffy along," Xander suggested to Willow as he drove the two of them over to Kennedy's for Willow's things. "That's some high-powered box-carrying we're missing out on."

"She didn't want to leave Spike," said Willow absently, watching the neighborhood change from the upper-middle class environs in which Andrew had built their mini-mansion to the borderline-urban district where Willow and Kennedy had rented an apartment. It was a great location, Kennedy had told her, convenient to restaurants and a cineplex and a good gym, close to the university. As if those things were more important than the Scoobies.

Xander winced in acknowledgment. Yeah, Buffy was clucking over Spike like a hen with one bleached-blond chick, while Spike did his best brooding Angel impersonation. Xander didn't hate missing that, actually. Almost enough to make a guy stay in his room to avoid it, if his room weren't already inhabited by a dead fiancée.

Xander pulled into the complex's parking lot and turned off the engine. "You sure you're ready for this?"

Willow hesitated a moment. "It has to be done sometime," she sighed. "It might as well be now. Get it over with, right?"

He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling behind his hangover shades. "Let's go," he said.

Before the door, Willow stared at the key in her hand. "I called," she murmured—not trying to delay going in; not at all. "She isn't home. It should be okay."

"Will—"

"Let's go," she whispered, sliding in the key. Despite what she'd said about Kennedy not being home, she peered around the door as if expecting Kennedy to be standing there, ready to stare at her balefully the entire time Willow packed.

But she wasn't. The apartment was quiet, bright with the late morning light. Xander silently followed Willow into the apartment and shut the door behind him. He put down the stack of boxes he was lugging and handed one to Willow. "Where do you want to start?"

"The bedroom," she said, practical as ever. That was where her most important things were. If Kennedy came home while they were still packing, Willow knew there was no way she'd just keep going with Kennedy there looking at her, making her feel bad. They had to get the important stuff first. "Can you go through the spare room? There are some boxes of books in the closet I never unpacked—you can go ahead and take those down."

He nodded, watching as she disappeared into the bedroom she'd shared with Kennedy. Not that he thought she'd run out all upset or anything, but … well, it was a possibility. There was nothing fun about breakups, even with nutty girls nobody but you liked. He could have written a book one that one.

He waited until he heard the opening of drawers and Willow mumbling to herself as she arranged things before heading into the spare room. It had never really been decorated—a couch along the wall, some workout equipment, and some boxes that they still hadn't gotten around to unpacking—and that was pretty much it. It was the same as the day they moved in, right down to the—the—

It took Xander a minute to realize what he was seeing. It shouldn't have—he'd seen similar things often enough. Then it sank in and he stood there for god knew how long before realizing Willow was talking to him from the next room. Then he heard her in the doorway, and snapped out of his daze.

"Do you have any—_Kennedy?!"_ Willow gasped

"Don't look, Will," Xander said swiftly, pulling her out of the room. He reached behind him and fumbled until he pulled the door shut, then dragged Willow to the couch. She was shaking and gasping and beginning to cry, but she didn't resist.

From across the living room Anya looked at him and shrugged carelessly. "What are you looking at me for? I didn't have anything to do with it. You shouldn't be surprised, though. Just another Scooby roadkill."

"Let's see," said Dawn, nodding to Andrew. He was older, but she was kind of the boss, because … well, because he was Andrew. She didn't think he minded—he liked having someone else make the decisions. Besides, if he was in charge probably the first thing he'd do was order dorky uniforms and create a Team Red Shirt secret handshake.

"Are you sure this will work?" Andrew asked a little nervously.

"It's better than nothing," she said. Actually she had no idea, but the stuff looked good to her. "You can do it, right?"

"Umm, well I was thinking about that, and I'm not sure it's the way to go," began Andrew. "How about if we tell Willow, or Mr. Giles?"

"Willow and Giles aren't telling us everything," Dawn pointed out.

"Mr. Giles didn't know—"

"Okay, Giles didn't know, and I don't think he should know this either," she cut off.

"Why not? He knows lots of things."

"Because there's no way he'd let us do this if he did know."

"Well, that might not be a bad—"

"Andrew! Red shirts! Remember!"

Andrew sighed and hung his head. Of course he remembered. They were going to die and three episodes later no one would remember their names. "It's just that I gave up magic when I embraced the side of good," protested Andrew miserably. "If I give in to the dark forces again they could consume me."

Dawn pressed her lips together and counted to ten. Andrew didn't seem to get that they were in danger _now_, and they should start protecting themselves as soon as possible, otherwise they were dead ducks. And as for his magic powers, he was less Dark Willow and more Doug Henning.

Which still made him tougher than Dawn.

"Do you want to die?" she demanded.

"No! No, of course not, it's just that I—I have reformed, and there are other ways to do things besides magic. Look at Willow!"

"Willow. Does. Magic," gritted Dawn.

"Well yeah, but she doesn't do it for any little thing."

"Dying is not _any little thing_!"

"We don't know that we're even in danger!" said Andrew desperately.

"They wouldn't have hidden Giles's books if there was no danger," scoffed Dawn.

Andrew looked at the floor. Dawn was great, but she didn't know everything. She didn't know what the rush of power was like, and how you could feel like you could do anything, that the world was your candy shop. But Andrew remembered how it felt with Warren and Jonathan, when they had just joined forces and the whole of Sunnydale was ripe for their plucking—before it started to go wrong. When he felt like he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, and that he would always win. And he'd never forget that girl—the girl Warren had brought them, the one who broke her neck on the stairs and looked up at him with horrible blank eyes. And he'd never forgot how just a few words from Warren, his Gandalf, his Yoda, had made it seem like nothing more than a speed bump on the way to their inevitable global conquest. Because they were above it. They could do what they wanted.

It was strange how being around the Scoobies made think of those things. He'd forgotten about it for so long, and he liked not remembering. It was a lot easier to sleep when he didn't remember it. With the Trio he was one of them, and with the Scoobies he was just on the sidelines. But being around them made him want to be better. He'd never be a Buffy, but maybe he could be a Xander. Even in high school, that would have been like a dream to him.

Beside him Dawn was rambling on, but he wasn't really listening. He tuned her out occasionally—sometimes she could be sort of nasty; she'd kicked Buffy out of her own house! And that made Spike leave, so it was twice as bad.

"I mean, are we just going to sit around and let—" Dawn continued.

"Xander and Willow are back," Andrew interrupted in relief, glancing out the window and seeing the SUV pull into the driveway. "We'd better help with Willow's stuff." He was out the door before Dawn could stop him. She might be right, but he wasn't ready yet.

Maybe he would later, but not yet.

"_Dead_?"

Xander nodded tiredly in response to Buffy's disbelieving question.

"Dead dead?" squeaked Andrew. He felt sick. God, Dawn was right! Kennedy had been on the sidelines just like them, and now she was gone, despite her Slayer strength. And despite being kind of mean. If it had killed her, it could kill any of them. It could kill _him!_

Xander winced, glancing over at Willow. Her face wasn't enraged, wasn't miserable, wasn't even stunned. It was just … old. And now she had to go through it all again. "Yeah, Andrew. Dead dead."

"How—how was … _how?" _asked Dawn hesitantly.

"Her neck was broken."

"The demon," whispered Buffy, wrapping her arms around herself. She'd known there would be trouble. There always was.

"Why would the demon attack Kennedy?" said Spike, making Buffy turn to him in surprise. He'd been quiet all day—the natural result of too much alcohol and an unexpected update on his mortality—but suddenly he felt completely sober. "What would killing her do?"

Willow flinched and shook her head "I—I don't know. Maybe she caught it doing something. She hated to sit around and wait, she thought it was useless and … cowardly. She must have had a plan," she speculated, her voice strained. A tremor ran through her, and she clenched her jaw. "I'm—I'm going upstairs," she finished. Xander reached a hand out to her, and she stepped away, refusing his comfort. She didn't want it. Not now.

The others watched her go in silence. Buffy thought, remotely, that this had happened so many times, in so many ways, that they'd be used to it, but it was always a kick in the gut. It never got easier.

"Kennedy was closing in on it and it killed her," whispered Andrew, shaking his head.

"Oh for god's sake," snapped Giles. "That's nonsense. We all know who killed Kennedy, and it wasn't a demon."

The others stared at him. "What are you saying?" Buffy asked in disbelief.

"I'm saying there's only one person who stood to gain by Kennedy's death, and that's Spike."

"Spike?" Dawn whispered, looking stricken.

"That's ridiculous," Buffy said sharply. "It wasn't Spike, he wouldn't do something like that."

"He's done it many times before—"

"He's human now!"

"And must have been feeling particularly mortal and vulnerable at the time. And considering he believed that Kennedy and the demon were one, and planning his death, it's not surprising he struck out at her."

Finally Spike spoke, his voice chill. "That's a load of shit, mate, and you know it. Exactly how am I supposed to break a Slayer's neck? In case you've missed the Slayer saying it, _I'm human_."

"Last night Kennedy couldn't have saved herself—Willow made sure of that," Giles said grimly.

"What are you talking about?" Buffy demanded.

"Willow performed a spell to prevent Kennedy from doing violence."

"To protect Spike?" asked Andrew.

"To protect Buffy," corrected Giles. "And Kennedy. The spell was for both of them. In case their confrontation got out of hand."

"Jesus," muttered Xander, sinking into an armchair as Buffy swore under her breath.

"So Kennedy's dead because Willow did a spell and took her power?" asked Dawn.

"That's not why she's dead," he denied flatly, his gaze resting on Spike.

Buffy pushed aside her anger at Will's interference. That could come later. That definitely _would _come later. "He was here last night," said Buffy, steel entering her voice.

"Not all night," Giles pointed out evenly. "He left only a few minutes after you did. Plenty of time to kill Kennedy after you left her. And no alibi."

Xander spoke up. "Actually, he has one," he corrected. "He was with me."

Buffy leaned close to the door, hoping that she didn't hear Willow casting a spell inside. And hating that she had to worry about that.

There was nothing to hear. No chanting, no crying, no nothing.

"Will?" Buffy asked softly, opening the door. Willow looked up from where she sat at the end of her bed. Her cheeks were a little damp, her eyes tired and hopeless. "God, Will, I'm just—sorry," said Buffy, bending to hug Willow tightly.

At first Willow was stiff in her arms, but she slowly awakened to the comfort of her friend's embrace. For a moment she rested her head against Buffy's slim shoulder, and was surprised to find that it made her feel less alone. "Thanks," she mumbled.

"How are you doing?" Buffy asked carefully, pulling back a little to look in Willow's face. Her eyes looked old, but not … black.

Buffy was pitifully relieved.

Willow drew a shuddery breath. "It's my fault she's dead," Willow whispered.

Buffy tensed. She'd planned to wait on it a little while—but if Willow was going to bring it up.…"I—"

"I should have been there," Willow continued dully, as if Buffy hadn't spoken. "She was feeling reckless and taking stupid risks. If I'd been there, she wouldn't have felt so—desperate. But I couldn't stay with her. I just couldn't do it. Do you know how that makes me feel?"

"Will—"

"Even now—you know I could have brought her back."

Buffy froze. "You're not going to—"

"I didn't even think of it," said Willow softly, her voice full of self-loathing. "I walked into the room and there she was, and her head was at a weird angle and her eyes were open, and I didn't think about it. I watched them as they took her body out. I went to the police station with Xander, and answered questions, and heard them say 'the victim' over and over again, and I knew they meant her, and I still never thought about resurrecting her. How's that?" she finished, her voice wobbly.

Buffy touched her shoulder. "That's great, Will."

"No, it's not. I didn't not think about it because it was wrong. I didn't think of it because I didn't love her enough. It was horrible to see her there, but my world didn't end. It didn't make me think I wouldn't be able to live without her. I just didn't love her enough. She deserved better than that," she concluded.

Buffy was tempted not to say anything; she didn't want Willow to feel any worse than she already did. But she had to know—she had to find out—"The spell you did on Kennedy and me—the one that made us lose our strength…."

"Spell?" Willow looked at her blankly for a moment before comprehension cleared her expression. "No, I dissolved that a few minutes after I cast it. I was worried, and not really thinking too well, but I decided Giles was right about it being dangerous, so I broke it. Kennedy had all her strength last night … she just didn't have me."

Spike heard Dawn before he saw her. Her silly little shoes—mules, she called them—made clomping sounds, like a clumsy horse as she stepped onto the porch into the growing twilight.

"I didn't think it was you," Dawn said.

Spike smiled faintly. "Sure you did, Platelet."

"I didn't want to think it," she amended softly. "I'm glad you and Xander had each other to drink with."

"More drinking near each other," Spike muttered with a grimace. "There wasn't a lot of talking going on." Him moaning about his encroaching death and Xander whinging about his old girlfriends about summed it up. That and _Bartender? Another round._

"I'm glad anyway." She hesitated, then added, "I don't want you to die."

"Niblet—"

"But I'm not Niblet anymore," she said, suddenly fierce. "Or Platelet, or Little Bit, or any of those things. That's—over. Too much stuff happened for that to be okay any more."

Spike stared at his feet, feeling his cigarette burning perilously close to his fingers. "Sure," he said, forcing himself not to attach an endearment to it. It wasn't easy.

Nothing seemed to be these days.

He remained out on the porch long after Dawn had gone in, and his cigarettes had lost their tang. He was human now, and easily tired. He wasn't at his most alert; if he were, he would have heard the faint creak of the porch, or sensed someone's presence behind him. He would have noticed in time, and not when the arm was wrapped around his throat

"Look what I've got here," whispered Wood against Spike's ear. "I guess all things really do come to those who wait."


	16. Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Spike tried to struggle, but Wood's arm was heavy around his throat.

"Of course you came back," Wood hissed. "Bad penny always does, right? Always shows up, always makes trouble. It's about time somebody—"

"Get out of my way and give it a rest," snapped Cordelia, shoving her way between the two men and putting her hands on her hands on her hips impatiently. "It's bad enough I had to listen to that all the way here, but someone will die a horrible death if I have to keep listening to it. And I don't mean Spike." She regarded the two of them crankily. Wood was tall, dark, and handsome, but had—_wait for it!—_a Slayer fixation. Not to mention a sense of self-importance that was kind of exaggerated for anyone who wasn't her. Besides, one cute, brooding, Slayer-whipped guy in her life was more than enough, even if he was going in for Lassie at the moment. And three hours in a car with Skankarella and the Dark Avenger was enough to put anybody in a bad mood.

"He's bad news," argued Wood.

"He's not exactly news," Cordelia pointed out. "He was hanging around being a pain in the butt before you even knew Buffy's name."

A muscle tensed in Wood's jaw, and Spike had the feeling Wood was tempted to push past Cordy and try again. "He's trouble!"

"Well, he's Buffy's trouble," said Faith from behind them. She looked at Wood and jerked her head towards the street. "Why don't you get the bags, big guy? Princess didn't bother to bring her wardrobe with her when she got out of the car."

Cordy ignored Faith and stomped into the house. God, that woman was foul—the last few months, with her hanging around like a zit no amount of Proactiv could get rid of, had been enough to make the coma look good. And maybe even the last few months before the coma. Which, considering everything that happened… _ewww._

Wood ground his teeth and trailed Faith back to the car. Seeing Spike, healthy and guiltless and _alive_, like he had any right to be there—any right to exist at all—made his bile rise. It was disgusting, against nature. "It's him," he spat. "He's the one who killed Kennedy."

Faith forced herself not to roll her eyes. He had a Spike thing—she got that. Spike killed his mother, made him an orphan. Left him alone in the world, where it was cold and horrible and nobody gave a fuck. It was still better than what she'd had, she thought with a twinge of bitterness. At least he had the memory of a mother who loved him.

Anyway, Spike wasn't the same guy as the vampire who killed his mother, and she couldn't judge him like that. Because if she did she'd have to start judging herself the same way, and the last time that had happened she'd gone straight to hell. Blamed herself, _hated_ herself because of an accident, then tried to live like it didn't matter. She couldn't go down that road, because she knew it wouldn't lead her anyplace good.

Faith shook her head. Okay, gotta stop thinking about it. "No way a human could get a jump on a Slayer like that," she pointed out reasonably. He should know—they'd sparred often enough. He was big and strong—just the way she liked 'em—but he'd never been able to get the drop on her, even when she was sleepy or hungover or sore from a hard night of slaying, or … other stuff. And Spike was a little thing next to him. Well, not that little. More … wiry.

_Yeah, wiry,_ thought Faith, a lascivious smile crossing her face as her mind drifted. _Lean and tight._

"He shouldn't be here," Wood insisted, as if she hadn't even spoken. "Living with the Slayer, like he's a damn king or something. Goes up in ash and comes back again, no, it doesn't matter if he dusts, he's special, he gets a second chance."

"We all get a second chance," she said sharply.

Pain crossed his face. "Not everyone."

Faith bit her tongue, cursing her big mouth. "Look, I didn't mean—"

"I know what you meant," he returned carefully, not looking at her.

He always did. At first she'd been relieved—no one had understood her before.

But sometimes it wasn't a relief.

Sometimes it was better not to be understood.

It was Andrew's shrill shriek that alerted the others. It was loud enough to draw Willow from her room, Giles from his study. And none of them, in their various imaginings, expected what they found.

"Hey guys," Cordelia said with a wry smile. "I'm back."

Cordy was glad to be herself again. Not Coma-delia, not Glow-delia, not even the non-Cordelia who'd carried a god like a damn incubator, god, what _was_ it with her and demonic pregnancies?

But supernatural pregnancies and all, she was especially glad to be Cordelia when she saw how everyone's faces dropped when they saw Faith and Wood. Nothing like other people being unpopular to make you feel better, she reflected with shameless pleasure. Even if Xander had jumped halfway out of his skin when he saw her, like the big girl he was. If she was the scariest thing he'd seen lately, he was getting soft. Well, softer. And she wasn't even going to _try _to figure out what he meant when he said, "She isn't real!"

And now that the Scoobies had wrapped their minds around the fact that they were here and real and the initial excitement had died down, everything was … well, not so hot, really. They sat around the coffee table with pizza, and no one was talking much, and hey, what did she expect from a day that started with a vision of Kennedy's dead body?

Cordy sneaked a quick glance at Willow, wondering how she was holding up. She looked composed, but … well, come on. Her girlfriend was newly among the dead. She couldn't be doing that well, right?

Then Willow looked in her direction, and Cordelia glanced away swiftly, not wanting Willow to think she was staring. Once upon a time, back in Sunnydale, she wouldn't have bothered, but she'd grown since then.

She stayed down after Faith and Wood went upstairs. Giles had offered them rooms, to Buffy's obvious discomfort, and Faith pulled Wood away, something about breaking in the bed. Cordelia didn't want to think about it, or she'd need a damn brain scrub like Gunn had gotten. Dimwit, to let Wolfram & Hart into his mind like that—what good could come of it?

"Idiot," Cordelia muttered.

Willow leaned towards her a little. "That's what I used to think, but she was really good when she helped us out with the Potentials last winter," she said earnestly. "And she didn't go all psycho killer, either. She's different now."

Cordy didn't bother to correct Willow's assumption; the idiot thing applied to Faith too, as far as she was concerned—she didn't care _what_ Angel said. "Everybody's different," said Cordy a little wistfully. "You're a big scary witch, I'm half demon, Angel runs Evil Inc., Spike is human, you all live with the biggest geek in the world and it isn't even Xander, there's a whole world full of Slay—oh, and I _knew_ you were gay!" she added suddenly.

Willow blinked, not quite following Cordy's train of thought. "Uh … okay, that was—okay…"

"I've had things on my mind, that's all—visions take up a lot of my time," rambled Cordy, not wanting Willow to think she was so self-absorbed that she didn't realize other people had lives. Lives which were, apparently, completely different than they were in high school, but it wasn't like she spent her high school years giving birth to demon spawn, either, and that's how she spent most of her time in L.A., right?

Right. "I mean, boom, I'm just sitting there and then—"

"You saw her? Today, in your vision?"

Cordy shut up abruptly. Yes, she'd seen her. It was why they'd made the trip down to Santa Rita—the vision of Kennedy's lifeless body. She'd said that earlier, when they'd arrived, but maybe Willow had been too upset to absorb it. "I'm sorry, Willow."

Willow's face took on a faraway aspect. "It was awful to see her like that—all broken…" Willow whispered, barely audible.

"They made you identify her?" asked Cordy sympathetically.

Willow didn't answer, and suddenly Xander was leaning over her protectively. "We found her. We went there to get Will's things, and there she was."

_"You_ found her?" repeated Cordelia. "But in my vision, it was Giles—he was there, I saw him standing over her."

Xander gave her a politely skeptical look. Wesley had claimed that Cordelia had visions, but Wesley had also thought he was the best Watcher in the whole history of watching. Hell, he hadn't even been the best Watcher in Sunnydale. "Just how precise are your visions, anyway?"

Cordelia hesitated. Sometimes pretty damn, but others … "Not very," she admitted reluctantly. "Not a photograph as much as a collage. A really …_ inventive_ collage."

"What are they like?" he asked, nudging aside a box of congealed pizza and sitting on the coffee table. It hadn't been that many years, but it felt strange to be around Cordelia again. Some people stayed friends with their exes, but he'd guess their breakups didn't involve being impaled on rebar. Just a guess.

Cordelia scowled at the question. A year or two earlier she might have felt differently, but since she'd come out of the coma, the visions had seemed kind of … unnecessary. And if the visions were unnecessary, was _she_ necessary? She'd kept them for so long despite the pain, refused to give them to Groo, gave up her dream life to become a demon to tolerate them, and what happened? The rest of them repaid her by joining Wolfram & Hart? What was up with that? She became a _demon_, and they just gave up and jumped on the Hell Express? "They're … different," she said evasively. "What about you? Still dating demons?"

Willow's eyes were on Xander even before he blanched.

"What?" Cordelia asked blankly.

"I—I'm going to bed now," said Xander, eyes dull. He was gone before Cordelia could speak.

When she turned back to Willow, she found the redhead studying her. Remotely, as if she were a bug. "You know about him and Anya, don't you?"

"Hmm? Oh, they dated or something, right?" What, did Willow expect her to keep up with every little thing that happened back in Sunnydale? It wasn't like she wasn't busy over in L.A. Managing Angel Investigations, becoming a princess, being unconscious—her schedule'd been very full.

"They were going to get married."

It took a moment for that one to sink in. "Married? Xander was going to _marry_ Anya? Is that a joke?"

"Xander, uh, left her at the altar, and she died last spring when we were fighting the First. Right before Sunnydale collapsed. He didn't get to say goodbye. He didn't even get to see her body," Willow finished softly. Maybe he was lucky she thought. That way it wasn't seared into his mind. He could remember her vital, not gray and lifeless and stiff.

Cordelia was silent for a long time. "I didn't know," she said finally. "No one said anything about it after I came back."

Willow smiled weakly. She'd never liked Anya—she'd been able to hide it, finally, but her dislike had never disappeared—but she knew Anya had really cared about Xander. That was what mattered, wasn't it? That she loved Xander, and he loved her. Not what other people thought.

Anya got what they all got. Dead. It was kind of funny, really; all these years, all these apocalypses, and the Scoobies were still alive and still together. They'd just lost their lovers, one by one.

"They all die," she muttered to herself. "It doesn't matter if we're in Sunnydale or not, it just follows us."

"Are you sure it was supernatural? Not a burglar or anything?"

"Do you really have visions about burglars?"

Cordy looked at her hands. No, she never had.

Willow could feel her temples beginning to hurt again, like they had at the police station. Talking about it wasn't helping anything; it just made her head hurt. Maybe it would have been better, she thought, if she'd just gone upstairs to her room; the others had been sneaking glances at her all night, then looking away, as if waiting for her to burst into tears. Or maybe some of them were worried she'd become homicidal and try to end the world again. Funny how that kind of thing stuck with people.

She wasn't going to cry, though—much—and she definitely wasn't going to end the world. But despite the fact that her presence was obviously making people uncomfortable, she still felt she should be there—they were here because of Kennedy. And Kennedy had been there because of her.

That didn't make it any easier, though. "Kennedy was a Slayer," she said finally. "It had to be something big. Not a burglar."

"She was a Slayer?" Cordy exclaimed in surprise. "I mean, I knew you'd mojo-ed the whole Slayer system, but nobody told me Kennedy was one."

"She was amazing," said Willow quietly. "So strong, so brave. She wasn't afraid of anything. It had to have been a demon.

"Nothing human could defeat her."

The art of the deal had many steps, Gunn had learned, and socializing was a surprisingly large part of it. To seal the deal it was best if the big guy himself was there, but news that some other vampire had gotten the Shanshu had sent him into the king of all funks and now he was off brooding, or sulking, or thinking, or whatever it was that Angel did when he was upset. Maybe he was locking some of Gunn's staff in a wine cellar with a couple of vampires; Charles didn't know. All he knew was that Angel wasn't here.

Fortunately, their client didn't seem to mind. "Another round, Mr. Nayer?" suggested Gunn, raising a hand to signal the waitress. Even from the other side of the nightclub he could see her shudder. He couldn't blame her, really; Nayer had been making passes in various degrees of repulsive all night.

Damn good thing he was so well paid, Charles reflected. He never would have imagined the bastards at Wolfram & Hart worked so hard—just thought they kicked back and watched the evil money roll in. Admittedly it was easier work than patrolling the 'hood, but the amount of schmoozing just to secure a deal with a lowlife like Nayer was ridiculous.

"Excellent suggestion," Nayer agreed, his eyes glittering madly. "We're becoming such good friends now, aren't we, Mr. Gunn? I feel as if we've known each other for years."

"I completely agree," said Charles without a drop of sincerity. "And please, Mr. Nayer, call me Charles."

"Charles," repeated Nayer, smiling at the waitress as she made her way to the table. "I believe I shall. And there's no need to stand on such formality, Charles.

"Call me Ethan."


	17. Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Spike's arm reached across the bed, resting in the place Buffy should have occupied. But the appearance of Faith and the others had upset her, and she'd retreated to her workout room after dinner, taking out her frustrations on the punching bag. She'd barely noticed when he'd left her there, tired by the day. By the death, by the automatic accusation. Maybe he should have stayed with her, offered to spar, but he doubted he'd provide much challenge. Not unless he wore Harris's fat suit, and he wasn't sure just how much of it was suit, so it probably wouldn't have worked out.

Still, the bed felt big and cold without her. Stupid, really, to become used to sleeping with her so quickly. They'd only spent the night together a few times before he went up in flames, and it was ridiculous to get maudlin. "Wanker," Spike mumbled in the darkness, turning over and trying to sink into sleep.

And that was when he realized he wasn't alone.

Angel smiled at him, moonlight slanting across his face. "Thought I'd just stay back while the others flocked around, boyo?"

Christ. "Boyo? Been into the stout again, Angelus?" Spike asked dryly, sitting up.

Angel smiled thinly, no pleasure in the gesture. "Don't think it means anything."

"What?"

"Being human. Getting what I deserve. Being here, in her bed. None of it means a damn thing. No matter how real it feels, it's just an illusion. You're just a stand-in for me. That's all you've ever been. With Dru, with Buffy, with the soul. A replacement. Nothing more."

Coldness began to unfurl in Spike's stomach. "Tell yourself that."

"Come on, William, you already knew it. What, like it was just a coincidence that Buffy started sleeping with you? You were the closest she could get to me. Man, at least I had a little dignity when we were together. But you—you were just a lost puppy begging for a little love, weren't you? God, you killed your own kind for her, looked after her whiny little sister like a damn babysitter, let her use you as a punching bag, and all she did was wipe her shoes on you. Pathetic."

It was hard, really, for Spike to hear over the dull roar in his ears. God, that Paingel had the nerve to come in and lecture him like the goddamn queen of Sheba, when he—when he—"Punching bag?" Spike repeated softly.

"Sorry. Do you prefer whipping boy?"

Spike dropped back on the pillow, rubbing a hand over his forehead and laughing shakily. He knew her—knew her better than she wanted him to, than she wanted anyone to. She'd never tell anyone about that. She'd had a hard enough time with the others even knowing she'd let him touch her; last thing she'd tell anyone is how she'd gone in for the rough trade. Especially Angel.

"What? You thought you had this special deep connection, and her fist would just _accidentally _run into your—"

"A dream," mumbled Spike. "A miserable crapfest of a dream, variation on the _Angelus comes back and everyone forgets about me_ classic. Great. Well, let me know when the walruses start flying around the room, I'd hate to miss that part." He turned over and buried his face in the pillow. Nice that this one was in the middle of the night; he'd forget about it before morning. Usually he got them last thing before waking up and spent the rest of the day miserable. Those were usually the days he stayed in his crypt drinking and feeling sorry for himself.

"You can't get rid of me by turning your head," taunted Angel. "I've always been there—even back when you were alive, and the laughingstock of all your friends. Then you get eternal life, and what do you do? You throw it away. You throw it away because of a _girl._ You sad, whipped little puke, you haven't changed a bit. You'd still sell your soul for a piece of tail."

"I didn't do it for Buffy," Spike insisted, ignoring Angel's crudeness. And his hair. "She wanted me to leave with her."

"Tell yourself that," taunted Angelus. "Come on, you were going up in flames. She knew you weren't going anywhere. She tossed you a bone so you'd die happy. Happens all the time. Don't kid yourself—it didn't cost her anything."

Spike stared at Angel. God knew why he was taking this seriously, but Angel pissed him off even in dreams. "Think you know everything, don't you?"

"More than you," Angel agreed.

"Not about Buffy."

"Not about Buffy? Before me, she was just a typical flake from California. I _made _Buffy."

"You _broke_ Buffy," Spike spat. "Her romantic dark knight, mysterious and silent. Making decisions for her, condescending to her, telling her what to think and what to do. Being noble and making sacrifices and everything was for her own good and bullshit like that? How about just telling her you didn't want to be with her if you couldn't have her, instead of acting like it was something you were doing for _her?_ You just had to polish your halo, didn't you? It wasn't about her, it was about you. Now she's moving on and you can't stand it. Buffy telling me she loves me? That was big. For me and for her."

Angel just stared at him. "Hasn't said it again, has she?"

"There's plenty of rooms in this house, mate. And plenty of beds."

"God, do you lose brain cells every time you die? She doesn't love you, she loves having her slave back! She wants something done, you do it. She tells you to be a monster, you are. She tells you to be a hero, you are. You were right when you said there was no you left, just her in a dead shell. That's all you are anymore, her weapon. Her plaything. Whatever she needs."

Spike felt his stomach tighten again, but ignored it. He'd never minded what Buffy needed, or Dru before her. Unlike some people, he wasn't so self-involved that it had to be all about him. "You just figuring that one out?"

Angel shook his head as if disappointed in Spike's slowness. "So, what are you to her now? I mean, before you may have been a pity fuck, but at least you were somebody then. _William the Bloody_," he intoned mockingly. "Kill her or kiss her, I guess either was fine, right? Now you can't do one, and you don't do the other. You're like that boy of hers—the one in the army. Now you're no better than Finn. She kept him around because she felt sorry for him, too," he added. Spike flinched, and Angel laughed. "Hit a nerve? You know she doesn't like 'em weak—she wouldn't give you the time of day until you could knock her around again, did she? And now you're just another mortal around for her to protect. I mean, why doesn't she just—"

"Shut up, shut up, _shut__ up!_" Spike snarled.

The door to the hallway opened, and light flooded into the room. Spike blinked at the sudden brightness. He was awake, and alone. "Did you say something?" asked Buffy from the doorway.

"Just a dream," he said after a moment, mostly to himself.

Buffy shut the door as she came in. "Yeah, I bet I'll be having some bad dreams tonight, too," she agreed, shuddering. It was weird to see Cordy after all this time, and as far as she was concerned the jury was still out on Wood. He'd helped save the world, yeah, but she couldn't help thinking that the only reason he hadn't tried again with Spike was because she'd threatened him. And there wasn't an apocalypse hanging over their heads as a cudgel this time.

At least not that she knew of.

And as for Faith … yeah, she knew they were supposed to bury the hatchet during the spring, blah blah blah, but that forgive and forget thing had a lot more forgetting in it than she was capable of, and she wasn't sold on the forgiving part either.

Maybe they'd be gone when she got up in the morning. It was worth a shot, right?

Spike frowned as Buffy got ready for bed. Dropped her clothes and changed right in front of him, like he wasn't even a man. Like he wouldn't even be affected. Like he hadn't been in love with her forever. Hadn't lived for her, died for her. Changed everything he was for her.

Like he was just her lapdog, and existed only for her convenience.

She slid into bed beside him. As her body—no longer startlingly warm against his skin, as it had been for so long—brushed against his, he started and pulled away, moving until he was free of her touch.

She didn't notice. The day had been long, and soon her breathing was deep and regular.

Beside her, Spike remained tense.

She was there when Xander opened the door, sprawled on the floor, blood staining her blouse. She didn't say a word. He tried to ignore her. He tried to talk to her. He shut his eyes and told himself she wasn't there. He shut them so hard he saw stars, and still she was there when he opened them. He got into bed and turned out the light, but that just made it worse. He felt like someone was sitting on his chest, pushing the breath out of him. He felt like he was going to scream, or go insane. The tension was unbearable.

He wasn't aware of jumping out of bed and crossing the room until he was standing in the hall, his breath ragged.

God, he needed a drink.

As it turned out, he needed several drinks. It was much later that, sitting alone at the kitchen table, he realized that no matter what he did, no matter how much he thought he'd changed, he was still his father's son. And how much did it stink that the thought made him just want to drink more?

"Yeesh … don't tell me you do this every night?" asked Cordy from the doorway. "Geez, Xander, for some reason I expected better than this. Although I've had so many visions I probably have brain damage, so don't read too much into that."

"No, I do not do this every night!" exclaimed Xander defensively. "I found a body today, remember? It wasn't a great day."

Cordelia put her nose in the air and swanned into the room. Xander scowled. "And what about you? I would have thought you'd be a big movie star by now. Or, you know, a rich man's plaything."

Cordelia smiled sweetly, as she often did before inserting the needle. "And I would have thought you'd be a pathetic lush—or Buffy's lackey. And hey! Right on both counts."

Xander shook his head in amazement. Cordy was as big a shrew as ever, obviously. For some reason, he found himself smiling. "Welcome home," he said under his breath.

"What?" said Cordelia, not looking up from current activity of opening drawers and cabinets in a shamelessly nosy display.

"Nothing," Xander dismissed. He wasn't sure what he'd meant, or even which of them he was talking to. "What are you looking for?"

"Tea. That pizza was disgustingly greasy."

Xander got up and moved next to her. "Here," he said, reaching past her to snag a cupboard open. "Chamomile or lemon sage or ... Lipton, I guess."

Cordelia didn't reach for the boxes of tea. "I'm sorry," she said after a moment.

"About what?"

"About Anya."

Xander froze, his hand still on the cabinet door. They'd all lost so many people, starting back with Jesse. You'd think they'd talk about it, but they never did. Once they were dead, it was—not out of sight, out of mind. Not that. Just not a topic of conversation. The others hardly ever mentioned Anya any more. Maybe they thought it would be painful for him. And it was, but it was kind of a relief, too.

And besides, she was right upstairs. "Yeah. I'm sorry too."

They were both quiet for a minute, lost in their own thoughts. Then Cordelia pulled down the chamomile, and Xander remembered to let the cabinet go. After a few moments of looking lost he sat back down.

"It's amazing we survived," she murmured. "Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like if we grew up someplace normal, instead of the middle of Hellsville, USA?"

Xander considered it a moment. It would have been safer, for sure. He wouldn't have seen his friends turn into vampires, probably, or fought a giant snake at his high school graduation. Or met Buffy, and seen Willow blossom under her friendship. Or learned how to carve stakes and fight monsters and be brave. Or lost Anya. Or met her.

"You know, I'll … take what I got," he said after a moment. It wasn't like he had a choice, anyway. "What about you?"

"You know, I was offered the chance to be a TV star. A big one. Like some kind of perfect cross between Jennifer Aniston and George Clooney, with less plastic surgery."

"So some agent was trying to scam you—"

"Not an agent. A demon. And he wasn't trying to scam me, he—okay, he was, but I was really going to be a star. But I said no."

"Why?"

Cordelia hesitated. It sounded so stupid. "I was doing important things. I was helping. I knew what I did mattered."

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. And now that they're all with Wolfram Hart and doing their own things, it's like they don't need me anymore. Like…."

"Like they're grown beyond you?"

"Yeah. Like that."

Xander smiled wryly. "I could write a book on that."

Cordy studied his face. He looked so much older now—nothing like twenty-one. He looked middle-aged, like she felt. They'd both lost so much. He hadn't mentioned all he'd lost, but he wore some of it on his face. "Xander? You're not the Zeppo."

"Zeppo? What?"

"Zeppo … useless…"

He'd forgotten. It had hurt like hell at the time, but all he had to do to realize she was wrong was save the school and everyone in it, so no big. Now all he could think of was how hard she'd been trying to hurt him. The way she'd been hurt when she found him with Willow.

"Don't worry about it," he mumbled.

"After all, you're used to what happens when you hurt women," said Anya serenely.

Cordy watched in shock as Xander shoved his chair back so hard it fell over. "Jesus, will you leave me alone?" he ranted to the corner of the kitchen.

_God_, she thought in astonishment.

He was insane.

"Back so soon—and all alone? It _is_ a sad evening for you."

Ethan dropped his coat on an armchair and paid no mind to Dierdre; she could be such a harpy. He'd had enough excellent brandy with Mr. Gunn that her barbs didn't penetrate his sense of satisfaction—that all was right with his world, and wrong with the rest of it. "Did you miss me?"

"What do you think?"

"I'll take it that's a yes."

"I had nothing to do," she said, annoyed.

Ethan rolled his eyes. She could be such a drama queen. And it was in this mood that she was her most dangerous, but unfortunately, he was a little too relaxed to care much. "You could have gone visiting," he reminded her. "It's not like I'm your only option. Just the best looking."

"There's no reason to do anything right now," she countered. "Everything's falling into place—haven't you learned by now that rushing doesn't help anything?"

"You know, you could appear to him as that teacher he was so ridiculous about," suggested Ethan, warming to the idea. He let the thought linger in the air and took a liking to it. "Yes, you could tell him that if it weren't for him she'd still be alive and happy and probably have several completely obnoxious children with named for states or characters in obscure books. Something Calendar—that was her name."

"Don't be stupid," said Dierdre in annoyance. "If I appear to him he'll figure it out. And that would ruin all our fun, wouldn't it?"

Ethan's mood soured. "Yes, you're probably right. He does like to squash my fun. I really did prefer him when he was Ripper. All reckless and dark and dangerous." He hated to give up the idea. He'd never forgotten the way Ripper had mooned over that callow girl as if she were the only thing on earth. Pitiful. It was like Ripper had forgotten who he really was underneath it all.

"You know, I know what I get out of our little arrangement," said Dierdre, a typically joyless smile curling her mouth. "But what are you getting from it?"

Ethan chuckled. "It amuses me. They're in such disarray—they have no idea what's happening."

"They never have," said Jenny. Ethan's face darkened at her appearance and she laughed, sleekly transforming into Dierdre again. "But that's what makes it fun, isn't it? The way they keep trying. Boats against the currents, borne back ceaselessly."

"Boats?"

Dierdre rolled her eyes. "Never mind," she said dryly. She didn't know why she bothered, really, but he wasn't completely without his uses. Besides, he was as amusing to her as his friend was to him. And she was in need of assistance these days, since the battle royale with the Slayers that had so badly weakened her. Ethan was petty and infinitesimally small, unable to imagine anything beyond the ken of man, jealousies and slights not worth mentioning, but he had a talent for mischief. Until her strength returned—and she knew it would not be in the lifetime of any who now walked the earth—she would need such as him.

"Or you know what you could do? You could appear to him as—"

"Are you _trying_ to annoy me?"

"Oh, would it kill you to throw me a bone?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't think you have any cause for complaint. I've always taken care of you," she reminded him sweetly—a patently false claim that made him grit his teeth.

"Except, say, when the Initiative captured me."

She shrugged. "That was different."

"Of course it was different—you were strong then. Now you need me if you want to do more than throw shadows on a wall."

Dierdre's eyes sparked, and Ethan suppressed a smile. Oh my, he'd done it now, hadn't he? He _did _enjoy riling her up, although he knew it was really rather stupid of him. He never had been able to keep his finger off a cut. But what could she do? She needed him now more than he needed her. She didn't have the power to do much of anything without his help. As for him, she was merely a convenient way to pick at Ripper. He'd always found such ways, and always would.

It was just that most of them were not nearly so amusing.


	18. Eighteen

Chapter 18

Spike sank his fist into the punching bag again and again. It gave beneath his hand, a little more each time. He liked the feeling.

Once he would have knocked the bag off its chains. But this was still good. He wasn't the Rock, but he was in good shape. Not an ounce of fat on him.

And it was desire, not muscle, that made a great fighter. He knew that, always had. He hadn't killed two Slayers because he was stronger than them; he'd killed them because he wanted it more. Being human didn't change who he was; he was still Spike.

_Tell yourself that, boy._

"I didn't know anyone else was up."

Spike's shoulders stretched taut with recognition, and he continued striking the bag.

"Mind if I join you?" asked Wood, stepping into the gym. He pulled off his shirt and stretched, his powerful muscles flexing. It was a showy gesture, like a peacock fanning its tail to intimidate the other males. Well, thought Spike sourly, Wood had the bigger tail. Bully for him.

"Help yourself," Spike shrugged. Of course, it had only been a couple of months ago—to Spike, at least—that Wood had tried to kill him.

And Buffy didn't have an impending apocalypse to threaten him with now.

"So how do you like it—being human?" asked Wood, watching Spike closely. Like a cat with a mouse. "Must be hard to adjust."

"How do _you_ like being human?" Spike snapped.

Wood dropped all pretense of stretching. "What do you mean?"

"I like it fine—you're the one who's got a problem with it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I _mean_," said Spike sharply, "that you took me to your fortress of solitude, put on your special equipment, and tried like hell to be Superman. You were doing your damnedest not to be human."

Wood stared at him in astonishment. "In case you've forgotten, you were a _vampire._ I needed—"

"What? Poor little you couldn't push a stake through my chest? I've seen girls half your size and half your age dust vamps," mocked Spike.

"They were Slayers!" spat Wood.

"They were Scoobies. No extra strength, no special stamina. They were determined, that was it."

"You don't know what you're talking about," denied Wood, eyes burning.

As Wood's eyes smoked, Spike's grew colder. "You know, mate? I think I do."

Wood's mouthed thinned into a tight line. "Think you know everything," he scoffed. "Think you know—" he broke off, shaking his head in disgust. He didn't bother to look back at Spike as he stalked from the room.

Spike sighed, slumping his shoulders. Holding yourself as tall as possible took energy. "I don't know anything, mate," he whispered. "Not a damn thing."

She was alone when she woke up. Which was odd—Spike usually wrapped himself around her like an octopus. A hard, lean, muscular octopus, holding her so tightly it was like he was trying to burrow under her skin.

But not this morning.

Well, it probably wasn't important. He'd gone to bed early, so it made sense that he was already up. And he hadn't slept well—she'd woken up a couple of times and he was twitching and muttering under his breath. Poor baby.

And now, it was time to go make sure nobody killed him.

Buffy hadn't taken more than two steps into the kitchen in search of Slayer fuel before Cordelia nudged her way in behind her, looking disgustingly well-groomed. God, didn't she do anything besides fix her makeup?

"Hey. Sleep well?"

Buffy blinked, still mostly asleep. "Okay, I gu—"

"Good. Say, is Xander insane?"

It took Buffy a moment to realize what Cordelia had said. "What?"

"Xander. Is he nuts? Because we were talking last night, and I'm kind of thinking he is."

"He is _not_ insane!" Buffy said defensively. "He's just—wait. Are we talking about Xander or Spike?"

"Xander," said Cordelia impatiently.

"Oh, okay. Xander's not insane—he's the sanest person here."

Cordelia didn't look impressed. "Is that actually saying much?"

Buffy ground her teeth. She'd always had a limited amount of patience for Cordelia, what with only being human, and this was just not the time. Okay, it was _never_ the time, but that was beside the point. "What are you talking about?"

Cordelia rolled her eyes. Buffy had always hada problem with issues that didn't revolve around her. "Last night we were talking, and he started screaming at the wall."

"Screaming at the wall?" Buffy repeated.

"Yes. Telling it to stop bothering him. And then he realized I was staring at him and pretended he was just drunk, because apparently drunk is better than crazy. Which, admittedly, it probably is, since—"

"He was drinking?"

"Yeah, and he—"

"Again?"

Cordy paused. "So he gets drunk regularly?"

Buffy hesitated. Xander didn't drink that much, not really. But sometimes….

She didn't blame him. It wasn't like he didn't have reason to. What had gone right for him, ever? At least Buffy had been with Spike in his last minutes, looked into his eyes, told him she loved him. For Xander, the last he'd seen of Anya was her disappearing around a corner with Andrew. All he had left was Andrew's highly sketchy description of Anya giving her life to save his, which Buffy wasn't sure she believed. Andrew was so romantic he might say that just to make Xander feel better.

"Well?"

"Huh?"

"Xander! Drunk!"

"Right, Xander. Look, don't you ever drink a little too much?"

"Not so much that I yell at walls," Cordy shot back.

"It's been a bad week—"

"As far as I can tell, it's like every other week around you guys," Cordelia pointed out very reasonably.

"Xander. Is. Not. Crazy," gritted Buffy in frustration.

Cordy relented. It was possible she was wrong. Admittedly it didn't happen often, but … it had been years. She really didn't know these people at all. "Well, he _was_ pretty drunk," she admitted. And she'd probably appeared crazy herself once or twice when she was having visions. And then again when she was trying to destroy the world.

But there was something to that, both of those. They weren't natural.

Maybe this wasn't either.

Dawn sat bolt upright in her chair, paying complete attention to the teacher lecturing at the front of the room—at least that's what it looked like, she told herself. She kept her eyes glued to Ms. Conti and made several scribbles that to anyone else looked like she was taking notes, instead of doodling randomly in an effort not to go bonkers waiting.

Finally she felt it. Her bag, on the floor, shivered against her ankle. The signal! Dawn's hand shot into the air. "Ms. Conti? May I go to the office? I feel kind of sick." As soon as she spoke, she felt several kids leaning away from her. Wusses. As if a cold were something to be frightened of.

Her teacher frowned and fussed a little, but let her go. Dawn had known she would.

"Stage one complete," murmured Dawn as she ducked into the girls' room and pulled out her phone. "It won't be so easy to get us red shirts now."

They were really going to do it, thought Andrew, feeling sick as he pressed the off button on the phone.

At first they'd been planning a general protection spell, because something more intense would require him to drink deeply of forbidden magicks. But the tragic snuffing of Kennedy's life showed him just how mistaken he'd been in thinking he could avoid the dark side. To protect themselves, he and Dawn would have to immerse themselves in the stuff of nightmares.

So this morning he'd taken a trip downtown and bought the required goods—stronger than what he'd bought before—and today they'd take fate into their own hands.

"Cross your fingers, Dawn," Andrew mumbled, putting the receiver down.

"Dawn?" Andrew jumped at the sound of Buffy's voice as if she'd poked him with a cattle prod. "Dawn called?"

Andrew tried to suppress a flood of panic. God, he couldn't lie to Buffy! She was a Slayer, they were like human lie detectors or something! It's for the greater good, he lectured himself. _Think how depressed she'd be if he or Dawn died._ _Be strong!_ "Umm, yeah, she's, uh, a little under the weather, so she's coming home."

"She is? Wait, when did she phone? I didn't hear the phone ring."

"I picked it up just when it started to ring," Andrew babbled. "I was going to call Last Ditch Records, you know, the place across from—"

"Why didn't she call Xander, so he could pick her up?"

"She forgot his number?"

Buffy stared at him.

"I mean, uh, her phone was acting goofy and she couldn't access her phone book ... yeah, that! So she asked me to call him," Andrew said with relief. That sounded pretty plausible, didn't it?

Buffy could feel her muscles tensing, kind of like before a battle. Was Dawn being sick a coincidence, or something worse? It seemed like too many things were happening, and Buffy had no control over them. And she wasn't sure her Slayer sense was working—she'd thought Kennedy was the danger, not _in _danger. Buffy hadn't had an inkling about that

And whatever it was, it was good enough to take down a well-trained Slayer at the peak of her abilities.

"And you're sure it's nothing major?"

"No, _mom,"_ sighed Dawn, rolling her eyes. "I just felt kind of vomity."

Buffy relaxed a little. It seemed normal enough, and Dawn _did_ have a delicate stomach sometimes—usually after she'd eaten something unfit for human consumption. Mom always used to—"Emetrol! You should take Emetrol!"

Dawn's jaw dropped. "I'm not _that_ sick!" she exclaimed. Emetrol! Gah, she'd rather barf than swallow a spoonful of the stuff.

"You said you were nauseous," challenged Buffy. God knew it wouldn't be the first time Dawn had faked sick to get out of school, but she'd learn pretty quickly that Buffy wasn't that easy to fool—she'd_ invented_ faking sick. She really should have gotten a patent on it.

"Nauseous, not near death!"

"Hey, hey," Xander interrupted soothingly. "I'm sure Dawn'll feel better after she lies down for a while. Right?"

"Yes!" agreed Dawn gratefully. "A nap! And, uh, bland food!"

"Milk toast," said Spike, nodding sagely—like he was somebody's grandfather. Traitor! And he used to tell her stories about killing people!

_"What_ toast?"

"Milk toast, buttered toast in a bowl of warm milk. Nothing better when you're feeling poorly."

God, she really was starting to feel sick now. "I was thinking bland as in no Mexican," she said hopefully.

"We'll see," Buffy said, and pointed to the staircase.

Dawn drooped showily. She could play sick for a day; nobody would notice if she wasn't in bed for a few minutes. This was more important than going to school or eating food that had actual flavor, dammit. And if she had to, she'd take the Emetrol. She'd shut her eyes and try not to smell it, and swallow it before she could taste it. Because if she tasted it, she really would throw up. "Yes, ma'am," she said meekly, trudging up the stairs.

Andrew was waiting for her on the upstairs landing. His face was grim.

Dawn knew how he felt. "Showtime."

A light breeze drifted through the back yard, and Dawn shivered. This was exciting.

And kind of scary.

"Umm … can you hold out your hand?" suggested Andrew.

Dawn squinted at him. "Why?"

"The offering requires the blood of a virgin," he whispered, looking behind him nervously.

She didn't know why he was whispering; there was no one else in the yard "And you need me for that?" she asked skeptically.

Andrew blushed. "Umm … yes! Of course I do! Ha ha, that was very droll, you silly girl."

Dawn sighed. "Fine. You don't need much, right?"

"Just a couple of drops," Andrew assured her. As if he'd ever take too much blood from Dawn! She was like the big sister he'd always wanted. Er … little sister.

He poked her finger with a needle and carefully sprinkled the blood into the rough-hewn stone vessel, which had cost a _lot_ of money. You'd think it was encrusted with diamonds or something. It was really too bad he wasn't into the dark magic anymore—with the money he was getting for developing video games, he'd be able to afford some really neat stuff, and wouldn't have to do any skulking around to see if there were any good herbs growing in the park, like before.

He sprinkled some powdered tiksa horn over the blood and made a sign, then dropped in chopped elves-bane and chanted in Pictish while stirring the mixture in a serpentine pattern. Finally it looked right—almost gluey. That's what the spell had said. So any moment now—

The bowl exploded, thick pieces of ancient stone flying across the lawn. The protection demon Andrew had summoned stood before him, motionless. Awaiting his command.

God, he was big.

Andrew ignored Dawn's nervous gasp beside him, and forced himself to continue. "I have consecrated this spell with the blood of the innocent, and charge you to protect us from the forces of evil," he told the creature firmly.

The monster seemed strangely unaffected by Andrew's instruction. It merely stood there, bluish skin moist and shiny, its lanky limbs looking awkward and pasted-together.

Andrew decided to try again, a little louder. "I charge you to—"

Then the creature's arm slashed down, and Dawn began to scream.


	19. Nineteen

The good thing about guys, Xander thought, was that they didn't want to talk all the time. They didn't think they had to tell each other exactly what they were thinking, and they weren't upset if another guy ignored them. Because that's what guys did.

So when he passed Spike sitting at the kitchen table as he made his way to the refrigerator, Xander just grunted. Spike grunted back, not taking his attention from the messy, unidentifiable, yet not completely unappetizing pile of food in front of him. Yeah, sometimes it was good to be around guys, because Xander sure didn't feel like talking.

Xander rummaged around in the refrigerator, pushing the Coke aside and wincing at the row of Coronas and Hefeweizens. God, Cordy probably thought he was as big a lush as his father. And okay, maybe he did drink a little too much sometimes, but he wasn't that bad. But what was he supposed to say—_Hey__! Dead girlfriend ghosts are upsetting!_

He came up with a biscuit left over from dinner the night before and sank his teeth into it. Nice. Maybe if they had some ham he could—

Dawn's scream pieced the quiet of the late morning, and he dropped the biscuit.

A moment later a second voice joined hers—Andrew, his shriek ragged and broken. And then a third voice.

No, not a voice; it wasn't human. And it wasn't screaming—it was roaring.

Xander had the kitchen door open and was running to help before he even thought to get a weapon.

The first thing Xander saw was Andrew on the ground beneath the acacia tree. Then he saw Dawn, who was holding Andrew's arm and trying to pull him away from the powerfully muscled blue-green demon in front of them, but Andrew was dead weight, his temple an ugly red.

Spike streaked past Xander at a dead run. In some remote part of his brain Spike wondered if it was normal—how fast he was moving. Humans didn't move like that; compared to him, Xander was slogging through a marsh. It was as if, Spike thought, he had some sort of residual vampiric strength. The blessing of the demon without the curse? _God, yes._

Spike slammed into the creature at full speed and it stumbled backwards. It was a—well, hell if he knew, but it was sea-colored, and the front of Spike's shirt was slimy from their collision. "You are messing with the wrong people," he gritted, drawing his arm back.

Then the demon moved and he was dangling from its hand, throat compressed, painful, struggling for breath as the monster calmly held him aloft. For a moment Spike began to panic, his vision clouding, before he beat the fear back. The thrill he usually felt was strangely absent—possibly because a fucking gigantic asswipe of a creature was dangling him by his damned fragile human neck, vampire strength or not. The hell with this.

Spike brought his hands down sharply on the creature's shoulders. It should have been enough to break the demon's hold—would have, once—but its grip didn't waver. _Right_, Spike thought grimly. _Time for Plan B._

Behind him Spike could hear Dawn starting to sob, but determinedly pushed the sound out. God, listening to the Bit blurb might make him lose it completely. If he didn't take care of this, she was toast, and he wasn't going to let her down like that. Not again.

Spike reached down and gripped the demon's shoulder with his right hand to steady himself before drawing his left arm back and driving his fist into center of the creature's chest with everything he had. He'd stopped more hearts like that than with his bedroom eyes and tight little ass combined.

The creature didn't even flinch.

That was when Spike began to think that maybe he didn't really have any vampiric strength after all.

_Oh, shit._

"Bit, run—now, _run_," Spike choked in those wonderful last few moments before he died for the third time. Her crying became more distant; he was leaving, and he hadn't managed to do a damn thing. Dawn was going to die, and Harris, and even that sad sod Andrew, who he'd thought would survive a nuclear blast, along with cockroaches and parts of Britney Spears.

Then Spike was drifting down, slowly, slowly. The journey to hell was a long one, it seemed. And then, for some reason, he stopped. No Dantesque flames, no cave action, just him on the ground, the creature staggering above him, and Harris behind the demon, holding a shovel.

The sound of breaking glass brought him back to reality, and he looked over as Buffy landed lightly on the grass, fragments from a second-story window raining down around her. It was still falling as she launched herself forward, charging into the creature much as Spike had. He wanted to tell her it wouldn't work, but all he could produce was a wordless rasp.

He was wrong, anyway; it worked very nicely. She knocked the creature over, seized its head between her hands, and twisted sharply. Dawn and Andrew gasped at the sound its neck made as it snapped, but Spike and Xander didn't even flinch. Of course, flinching would have required considerably more energy than Spike had at the moment.

Buffy wasn't even panting as she let the demon's head drop to the ground. "Would somebody mind telling me what the hell's going on out here?"

"So what do you think?" Faith asked, shutting the door to Kennedy's apartment and replacing the police tape. She wasn't sure why she bothered; if people wanted in, they'd just take it down, exactly like she and Wood had.

"He hasn't changed a bit. He's got them all fooled, but he's the same thing that he was before. Now he's just got a pulse," fumed Wood, shaking his head in disgust.

Faith let that hang in the air a moment. "I meant about Kennedy."

Wood flushed. There was no good way to transition out of it, so he decided to pretend it never happened. "Uh, yeah. She was surprised?"

Faith raised an eyebrow. "Why do you say that?"

Wood shrugged. Truthfully, he'd just blurted it out, but it seemed reasonable. "There was no sign of a struggle," he pointed out. "She was a Slayer—strong, well-trained. I don't think someone could take her without a hell of a fight if she hadn't been surprised."

Faith nodded. Wood was damn near as messed up as she was, but he was smart. Like Willow, only less of a fake goody-goody and with a more talented tongue. Okay, that last one was just a guess, but she was a pretty good guesser about those things. Well, _really _good guesser. "So how's that help?"

"Well, it tells us that whatever it was is really quiet, or can just apparate out of nowhere—"

"What's _appar_—"

"Or is someone she knew," Wood added hurriedly. No need to lower his cool quotient with a term from a book he definitely hadn't read.

"Kennedy told Fred she thought it was thaumogenesis. What about you?"

Wood hesitated. Yeah, everyone was all set on thaumogenesis, but it seemed too easy to him. If there was one thing he'd learned growing up with Bernard Crowley, it was that nothing was that simple. "I don't know. Why would it attack Kennedy? Killing Spike would let it stay alive, but killing Kennedy wouldn't do a damn thing."

"Unless she was trying to get rid of it, and it decided to get rid of her first."

Wood shrugged. "Maybe."

Both were silent as they drove through the city. Unlike Sunnydale, there were some seedier areas in this town; the picturesque park that served as a border between the downtown shopping district and the residential areas had a few shabbily dressed people with bottles huddled under trees. In Sunnydale, demons drawn by the Hellmouth had kept the indigent population pretty much nonexistent. There, they were like found money to the vamps and other baddies; here, they had nothing to fear, except for cranky residents calling the cops.

And yet whatever it was that killed Kennedy had found its way here.

"Good workout this morning?" asked Faith, startling him.

Wood glanced at her a little suspiciously. "It was fine," he lied.

"Work out all your kinks?"

"Yeah."

"Pound out all your aggression?"

"Sure."

"Slay your demons?"

Wood gritted his teeth. "Is there something you want to ask, or do you just want to needle me all day?"

"Both would work for me," admitted Faith impishly, popping her gum. "How'd your Spike session go?"

Wood winced "Could you please not phrase it that way?"

She sighed. It wasn't like there was an easy way to ask him about it. "Look, you cool with the situation at the house?"

"Yeah, I love being two feet away from the thing that killed my mother."

"You want us to stay in a hotel?"

"No…."

"Well look, if Spike's gonna make you crazy—"

"He does_ not_ make me crazy!" Wood snapped.

Faith raised her eyebrows.

"He should have stayed dead," he said finally.

"The thing that killed your mother_ did_ stay dead," she reminded him gently.

Wood was silent for a long moment. "I know."

"Then what—"

"I know you want me to say it's fine and I'm over it, or that I've had it and I'm going to kill Spike the next time I see him, something simple like that. But it's not simple. Nothing's simple."

"Things don't have to be so hard if you don't—"

"Last time I looked, you and Buffy weren't exactly pals," he shot back. "And I'm pretty sure she didn't break yourmother's neck."

"No, it was more like the closest thing I had to a father," she muttered, almost-forgotten bitterness coloring her voice.

Wood turned to her, startled. "You nev—"

Faith cut him off. "Look, I'm sorry I brought it up. But if you're looking for goodness and light, I don't know what you're doing hanging around with Angel and the others, and I sure as hell don't know what you're doing around me."

"You're different now."

"Yeah. 'Cause people can change. You might want to try it sometime."

They drove the rest of the way in silence.

Sometimes that was simpler.

They summoned a demon. They summoned a _demon_. They were insane. _Don't yell,_ Buffy told herself. _Stay calm. Try to_—okay, that wasn't working. Time for another plan. "You summoned a _DEMON?"_ she shouted. "What the hell were you thinking!"

Andrew cringed in his seat and tried not to look at her. "We were just trying to help," he said, speaking mostly to a painting slightly to her right.

"Help? Help what? Since when has summoning a demon ever helped _anything!"_

"Well, this one time I summoned a Glarghk Guhl Kashma'Nik, which makes its victims delusional, and—" Andrew paused for breath and caught sight of her expression. "—which I only mentioned as an example of a bad use of demons, as opposed to a valid use of summoning a demon to protect the most vulnerable members of the team, which is us," he corrected hastily.

Buffy looked as if her head were going to explode. And now that he'd accidentally looked at her, he couldn't look away; it was as if her eyes were following him, like that trophy back at Sunnydale High. Okay, her eyes were _definitely_ following him, because she was going to kill him for summoning that thing and almost getting Dawn killed.

He tried to concentrate on the painting, but it was too close to her; she was drawing his eyes with her powerful Slayer mojo. He turned and faced the other side of the room.

Bad move! Mr. Giles was there, and he looked scary. "And how did you think this particular demon would help you?" he asked frostily.

"The Läfhein'thk protect those who are being threatened by demons," Andrew said, rubbing his temple for a moment before jumping up in a panic. "Oh my god, am I part demon? Is that why it attacked me?"

"No, because you're exactly wrong. The Läfhein'thk provides protection_ to_ demons who are being threatened!" Giles flashed.

Andrew's face fell. "But I looked it up—" he began.

"Stop yelling at him," Dawn said tiredly. "It was my idea. He didn't want to do it. I made him."

The look Buffy sent her was searing.

Xander couldn't take it anymore, and jumped up. "Okay, I want to talk to you two," he said to Dawn and Andrew. "Alone."

"After me," said Buffy ominously.

"Before you," Xander insisted.

"I'm the one who's—"

Xander leaned closer to her, lowering his voice so the others wouldn't hear. "Look, I think I know where they're coming from a little more than you do, okay?"

She eyed him skeptically.

"Look, coping with being powerless in a houseful of superheroes—leave me what I'm good at," he persuaded. "I don't horn in on fighting monsters, do I?'

"Well, someti—"

"For the most part?" he amended.

After a moment she shrugged. She could lecture Dawn later, she supposed. And it was always a good time to kick Andrew's ass. "Okay," she agreed reluctantly.

"Good. And stay away from the home repairs, too."

That one she thought she could manage. "It's a deal."

"Excellent. Also, stay away from—"

"Don't push it," Buffy advised, herding the others out of the room and giving Dawn a last warning look before leaving. The guilty parties' sighs of relief were audible.

Xander waited until he was sure everyone was out of hearing range, then turned to face them.

"Okay, you two know I know what I'm talking about when it comes to these things, right? You trust me?"

Dawn and Andrew nodded, Andrew looking worried, Dawn determined. "Good, then I'm not going to beat around the bush.

"You're both going to die."


	20. Chapter 20

Andrew and Dawn stared at Xander. Clearly they weren't expecting confirmation of their impending deaths. "Do you notice something strange about me?" asked Xander.

"Your skin does have a peculiar luminescence—" began Andrew.

"I'm missing an eye." Xander corrected.

"Ah!" Andrew nodded sagely. "And so you are the one who sees most clearly—"

"No, I'm the one who had his eye poked out by a crazy preacher. And Buffy's the one who died twice. And Anya died, and Tara and Joyce, and a bunch of other people too. The same thing's going to happen to you, and I don't know when. But a spell's not going to help."

"But Buffy came back—because she's the Slayer—and we're just red shirts," said Dawn, bitterness tingeing her voice. She wasn't even the Rhoda—that was Willow; Dawn was like Rhoda's younger sister, or maybe somebody she knew at work.

Xander raised his eyebrows. "Red shirts?"

Andrew began, "On classic _Star Trek_, crewmembers who—"

"I know," Xander interrupted, hiding a smile. "There have definitely been times I felt like a red shirt. But Buffy didn't come back because she's special, she came back because her friends brought her back. There were a whole lotta Slayers before her, and they're all dead. Being a Slayer didn't save Kennedy, and being a witch didn't save Tara. The world is dangerous, and the Scoobies? Pretty much danger magnets. I don't know how long you're going to live, or how you're going to die, but we can't stop bad things from happening, not with magic. We just have to be smart."

"Easy for you to say," Dawn muttered sullenly.

"Yeah, I suppose you could say I have tunnel vision," agreed Xander with a hint of asperity. Dawn flushed guiltily. "Look, Buffy wouldn't let a nutcase blonde with a god complex hurt you, so who do you think's gonna get past her? And you," he added, nodding towards Andrew, "you escaped the wrath of the scariest thing I've ever seen—Willow out for blood. So I think both of you are one up on death and counting. And if you stop doing stupid things like summoning demons, you're probably going to live a whole lot longer."

"We are?" asked Andrew hopefully—looking, clearly, for a promise.

Xander couldn't give it to him. "Look, there aren't any guarantees. But we're the lucky ones, right? It's the ones who aren't here that didn't make it. We're the survivors."

Andrew looked comforted. Dawn merely chewed her lip, but finally nodded.

"It was a really good summoning spell," she told Andrew wistfully.

So they'd bought it; Xander was relieved. He'd said those things because he couldn't say anything else. He didn't want them doing crazy things and getting themselves killed, but it was hard to escape the feeling that things couldn't get much worse. He knew what came next, what always came next: death, misery, loss. It never changed. No matter where they lived, no matter what they did, it was always the same. It wasn't going to change. They'd die or people they loved would die, and they'd mourn them.

Or maybe they were all dead already, and this was hell.

So why not lie to them? If it soothed them, it was worth the effort.

They'd grow up soon enough.

Stupid, worthless, pitiful little puke. What the hell was he doing here? What was he doing _alive?_ It was that demon in the cave, having a good laugh at his expense. Get a soul and become a mopey brooder like he-who-must-not-be-named. Become human and lose his Spike-ness. Now he was just miserable William, with a bleach job and the memory of being something more.

"There you are," said Buffy, opening the bedroom door without knocking and breezing in. Why not? he thought sourly. It was her house; he was just a visitor. "I was looking for you. Thought you were down finishing your lunch, but no go."

"I do things besides eat," he muttered sullenly.

"Yeah, you do the drinking thing well," she joked. He just glared at her.

She rolled her eyes. What was _he_ pissed at? She was the one with the boneheaded sister who conjured demons. "Considering you were almost strangled, maybe you should take it easy the rest of the day," she suggested reasonably.

"So business as usual, I guess," he sulked.

"What do you mean?"

Spike turned to face her with a grimace. "I was completely useless out there!"

"You weren't useless," Buffy insisted.

Spike snorted in disgust. "I couldn't even take care of myself. I was saved by a fat, one-eyed—"

"Come on, Xander isn't fat—solid, maybe, but—"

"_Fat,_ one-eyed carpenter I wouldn't have deigned to _eat_ a few years ago!"

God, he was such a drama queen. And Xander wasn't fat. And she was the one who'd saved them. "Why are you so worried? You're older than all the rest of us anyway—you're on your third lifetime."

"So I should just be ready for the glue factory, eh?"

"That's not what I meant! Jesus, what's wrong with you? You're not acting like yourself," Buffy snapped.

"How would you know?" he sneered. "Like you ever paid me a damned bit of attention."

"I paid you _plenty _of attention!"

"I _mean _while I had my clothes on!"

"God, you are such an asshole!"

"I guess the song hasn't changed, then," he said bitterly, throwing himself down on the bed and crossing his arms over his chest.

Buffy counted to ten. "Spike, you know what I like best about you?"

"My nice big—"

She cut him off. "You adjust. You whine, you bitch, you get drunk, but then you _adjust_. Look, I know you're feeling all human-y and vulnerable compared to when you were a vampire, but you're not weak, Spike. You're not weak in what counts." How could he not realize that? He was the strongest person she'd ever—

"Being human doesn't make me weak, _you_ make me weak!"

—wait, _what?_ "_Me?_" she exclaimed in disbelief. "Is this a joke? You're like Riley now? I have to pretend I'm not strong, so I won't make you feel all weak and emasculated?"

Spike leapt up, outraged. "I am _nothing_ like Captain Cardboard," he snarled. "I'm what you make me, I've never been anything else! That's all that I've been!"

"_What?_"

"I love you. Have for years. And whatever you've told me, I've believed you. I told you I could be good, you told me I was a serial killer in prison. First thing I did was chain you up. I told you I loved you, you told me I was evil and disgusting. Next thing I did was attack some girl in an alley. I told you what we had was love, you told me it was twisted, and I tried to—to—

"I've never been anything," he finished thickly. "Nothing but what you've made me."

God, he couldn't believe that, could he? Could he? "That's ridiculous," she managed. "Like you've ever done what I said. Like I told you to—to—"

"Get a soul?"

"Exactly! I didn't tell you to do that."

"You told me you couldn't trust me," he said quietly.

Well, that was … after they'd already slept together. "I didn't tell you to attack some girl in an alley—"

"You told me I was a monster."

"I didn't tell you to burn yourself up," she blurted out, surprising both of them.

He reached out and tucked a stray lock behind her ear. "You told me I was a champion," he said warmly.

"I—I didn't mean to make you—" Buffy cut herself off. "I told you I love you," she whispered. "You didn't believe that."

"I believed you," he said softly.

"You said you didn't—"

The look he gave her was naked, vulnerable. "I was trying to get you out of there. I was trying to get you to go on with your life— to set you free You'd just been released from being the chosen one, having the weight of the world on your shoulders. I wanted you to be free from mourning. You've been tied down long enough. But I _always _believed you. Everything you ever told me, I believed you. You're my north star. My southern cross."

Buffy looked shaken. "You need your own compass. It can't just be me."

"Got a compass, love." He told her, tapping his chest.

"Your soul," she murmured.

He smiled a little. Let her think that. She was naïve still, after everything that had happened. Some part of her still believed the soul was a magic bullet, able to cure anything. He knew a soul was merely a guide, not a guarantee.

He'd had that before he'd ever regained his soul. Because of her.

But some things weren't settled, and he needed them to be. "Buffy, do you want me to go?"

"What?"

"You don't owe me anything. Just because you told me that all those months ago … yeah, you meant it. Doesn't mean you gotta stand by it now."

Buffy blinked at him. "You think I'd be with you because I felt _obligated?"_

Spike shrugged. "You're the one who brought up Finn," he said.

Buffy scowled. "I didn't feel obligated to him!"

Spike raised one eyebrow.

Buffy wavered. "—Much!" What could she say? She'd wanted a normal life, and Riley seemed like the walking, talking personification of normal. She'd thought he was a lifeline. If she couldn't become normal with him, who was she? _What _was she?

"Like I'd feel obligated to you," she muttered. "Like you wouldn't be following me around _telling me_ what I should feel. And what? You thought I'd stopped loving you just because you died? I mean god, do you know me _at all_? If you hadn't noticed, I don't precisely give up just because something's hopeless. It's part of my charm," she reminded him.

"Part of it," he said with a faint smile, stroking a finger down her face.

Her insides felt shaky. God, what was it with her and guys? She'd almost lost him again, and she hadn't even known he was unhappy. Yeah, he'd just _come back from the dead_, and she'd thought everything was fine. She of all people should have known better. When it came to men, her brain turned off. Which was sometimes a good thing, admittedly. She sure wouldn't have become involved with Spike otherwise. "I love you," she told him firmly. "Not because you're human, and not because it's the easy thing to do. Nothing about you—about us—is easy. But it's what I want," she told him, holding his hand to her face.

He didn't reply. He didn't have to. His eyes told her everything she needed to know.

The hallway was empty when Cordelia slipped into Xander's room. As soon as the kids had been dragged into the house and the shouting began, Cordy had slipped out. She really didn't know either of them, and as long as they didn't get her killed she didn't especially care what they'd done—although she did kind of wonder that Buffy's kid sister just went around playing with magic.

"Monkey see, monkey do," she muttered to herself, shutting the door behind her and sizing up the room. It wasn't like you could grow up in Sunnydale without casting a spell or being attacked by an invisible girl or dating a vampire. Or all three, if you were her.

Now, where to look? There weren't any really reliable signs of ghostly visitations in her experience—no dripping ectoplasm or sudden cold drafts or anything—but sometimes things _did_ make themselves apparent. Such as a book sliding across a table, or a crazy control freak murderous ghost trying to get you to kill yourself.

_Dennis_, thought Cordy with a pang. When she'd been all possessed by Jasmine-to-Be and didn't have free will or a plan beyond birthing her very own superbeing, she'd given up the apartment. Later, when Cordy had come out of her coma, she'd gone back and talked the new tenants into letting her in for old times' sake.

Dennis was silent. Either he'd moved on, somehow, or he didn't want to talk to her.

She hadn't gone back.

But if something was haunting Xander, she had to give it a shot. God knew nobody else had noticed anything, and Xander couldn't find his way out of a one-room shack without a sign over the door. It was her or nobody. "Here, ghosty-ghosty-ghosty," she sing-songed, opening the closet and peering inside. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

The voice came from behind her.

"Looking for something?" Xander asked softly.


	21. TwentyOne

"Well, this is unexpected," said Xander dryly. "Last time I heard you on the subject, anyone who touched my closet should have his hand amputated. So has there been a big change of heart, or is there an actual point to this little visit?"

Cordelia froze, caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Or Xander's disgustingly messy closet. "Uh … yeah. Well, I … hmm. Well, I was kind of thinking about your little haunting problem, and I thought maybe I'd try to help you out, because your friends aren't exactly the brightest bulbs on the circuit and you kind of seem like you're cracking up. So, are you going to help me or are we just going to beat around the bush?"

Xander's jaw dropped. What did she—she couldn't know, there was no way she—"How do you know?" he demanded.

"Duh—you're not exactly good at hiding things."

"Nobody else noticed!"

"Wow, that's a shocker," Cordelia muttered, rolling her eyes. "So, what's the damage? Is it a ghost? The First? Maybe you're possessed. I mean, it's _something_. Or you're going insane. Clearly that's an option too—don't want to rule that one out."

"Yeah, uh … thanks." What should he say? The cat was out of the bag, but … "Look, I don't, uh, I think you may be mistaken—"

"Oh, please. You can tell me or I can find out for myself. Which will it be?"

He ground his teeth. Maybe it was better to tell her. It would have to be better, right? Anything would.

Panic, irrational and complete, reared up. If he told her, everything would unbalance, and the fragile hold he had on his world would dissolve. What he had was miserable, but he wasn't sure there was anything else. "There's nothing going on. Nothing I can't handle. And I know we haven't been close for a long time, but—look, if you ever cared about me, just let it alone. Please."

"Oh," murmured Cordelia after a moment, and Xander began to exhale. "No, not gonna do that."

It took a moment for her words to sink in. "What? Wait, what? I meant, stop bu—"

"Yeah, I heard you. I mean, _hello_! Did you really think I'd fall for crap like that? Seriously, maybe you _have_ lost it. The other night you said 'leave me alone'—so who were you talking to? Is it your parents? It's not me, is it? Because there've been a lot of fake Cordelias going around."

"No, it's not you," he mumbled.

Cordy studied his face. "Is it Anya?"

His stricken look was answer enough.

"Why would Anya haunt you? Willow told me you two were okay before she died."

He turned away in agitation, shoving his hand through his hair. "She didn't _die_, she was killed. Because of me."

She raised her eyebrows. "Wow. World revolve around you much? I thought she died in the battle with the First."

"She wouldn't have been there if not for me—"

"Uh, excuse me, but I knew Anya, remember? And she wasn't some delicate little flower trailing after the big strong man. If she was there, it was her decision. Like boning Spike."

He didn't ask how she knew. He didn't even flinch. Once it would have driven him crazy, but that was when things still mattered. "She did that to get back at me."

"Xander," she began, but cut herself off. She ran through it in her mind, and there just wasn't a polite way to say it. "Not everything's about you."

A bitter laugh escaped him. "You think I don't know that? Believe me, I learned that a long time ago. But with Anya, it _was_ all about me. That's what the others don't understand."

She was silent for a long moment. "How long has it been going on?"

He tried to think. Since before they'd bought the house? It seemed like it. It seemed like it had been almost from the beginning, but maybe those were dreams. It had been a while before he realized it was really happening. "July?" he offered. "I think that was wh—"

A piercing scream cut through Xander's explanation. "Jesus, again?" he blurted, plunging through the door after the sound, Cordelia close behind him. Pounding down the hallway, he realized he'd again forgotten to get a weapon, and cursed his stupidity. Of course, there were weapons in just about every room in the house, so that wasn't going to be a problem.

Xander rounded the turn in the hallway and smashed square into Andrew. "Aaaaggh!" Andrew screamed, hitting the ground and slapping his hand to the spot on his forehead where they'd collided.

"What is it, what is it?" demanded Xander, staggering but keeping his balance.

"Oh my god, it was horrible—_horrible_," Andrew exclaimed, shivering.

"What—_what!"_

"In Buffy's room…."

"Buffy…." Xander whispered, lunging forward before Andrew could stop him.

"No, wait, it's—"

Xander flung open the door to Buffy's room, then gasped and jumped back, hastily shutting it. "Why didn't you tell me?" he said to Andrew.

"I _tried!"_

"What is it?" demanded Cordy, starting towards the door. Those two needed adult supervision; good thing she was there to take care of the situation. But before she could reach the door it was snatched open and Spike stood there, looking extremely put out. And naked.

"What the hell does a couple have to do to get some privacy around here?" he roared.

Buffy poked Spike in the ribs. It wasn't like him to be so quiet after … well, after. And she was pretty sure he wasn't still pissed at the others for walking in on them—heck, he didn't mind if they got a look at his junk. Actually, she was surprised he didn't ask them to tell their friends, or offer to pose for pictures.

He'd been upset because he thought it would put her off. It would take him awhile to get used to her being okay with it, but she could wait. "What is it?" prompted Buffy, ready to offer some on-the-spot soothing.

For a long moment he didn't answer, and she wondered if he was going to pretend to be asleep. Finally he whispered into her hair, "I'm not like I used to be."

"Neither am I," she returned softly. "I used to be normal."

"Sweetheart, you _are_ normal. There's nothing about you that's not normal—except for the superstrength and the being resurrected and fine, lots of things about you aren't normal. But it's you."

Buffy chuckled. He could be so sweet, so insightful. And sometimes just completely wrong. "I used to be the Slayer, and now I'm just _a _Slayer—there are a million girls like me out there, and if I can't handle something they can take care of it, and I can't even relax and go back to being the girl I used to be, because what with the dying and the resurrecting and the mystical sister and the vampire boyfriends, I don't even remember what she looks like anymore."

"Why would you want to be her again?"

She stilled. "What do you mean?"

"A teenager … overdramatic, everything life or death. No sense at all."

"Sounds a lot like you," she pointed out.

"And you're telling me you want to be like me?" he challenged.

"I've wanted to be normal for so long…."

Spike snorted. "Trust me, I remember normal. Normal's overrated."

Buffy turned to him suddenly. "Why do you love me?"

He was taken aback. Spike studied her face, seeing the uncertainty and the hope. Cursing everyone who'd put that uncertainty there. How could he explain it? He didn't have the words to describe his love for her, and he couldn't give form to something beyond his ken. But for her, he'd try. "You're a habit. A refuge. An addiction. A virus. A parasite that's burrowed its way into my heart without invitation, a monster, an occupying army, my light, my hope, my reason for living, my reason for dying. I've tried to hate you. Hell, I've tried to kill you. Couldn't do it. And I've had, I've been told, plenty of chances. I told you before, Buffy—you're it. For me, you're it. There isn't any other. There can't be."

A slow smile spread across her face. "That's the—wait, did you call me a parasite?"

Spike laughed. "You ever read Congreve?"

"What's that?"

"It's a who, not a what. Writer. Really knew his stuff. Wrote a little play called _The Way of the World_, about a pair of lovers. Millamant and Mirabell."

"What and who?"

"Yeah, you're one to talk," he shushed. "Anyway, Mirabell didn't want to love her, because it—"

"Mirabell's the _guy?_"

"Because it was hopeless. So he decided to make himself fall out of love with her. He looked at her objectively, took note of all of her flaws, studied them—and grew to love them as much as he loved her virtues. He'd tried his damnedest, and he loved her even more than before."

Buffy smiled and nuzzled his chest. "That sounds nice," she whispered. "Why didn't you just say that?"

"I did, love. You just didn't hear it."

"And I don't need to hide my strength to make you feel like a man?"

"I don't need to be able to beat you up to feel like a man, baby. The way you wrap your legs around my head takes care of that one." She socked him, and he chuckled. "'Sides, I knew you were the Slayer going in, didn't I? Nobody stronger. Nobody more likely to stake my ass."

"Damn right."

Conversation between Xander, Dawn, and Andrew stopped the moment Buffy and Spike walked into the kitchen. For a few moments everyone stared at each other as if they were waiting for somebody to pull their guns and start shooting, then Dawn turned away and made a big production of searching through the cabinets, muttering about Funyuns.

"Anyone got anything to say?" invited Buffy, sticking her chin out. Spike dragged a chair around and straddled it, trying not to laugh. Buffy took this seriously. He wasn't going to laugh.

God, he was going to try not to laugh.

"You know, Buff, anything you want to do is fine with me," offered Xander cautiously. "I just don't want to see it. And Cordelia's giving herself a 'healing cucumber eye mask,' so I don't think she wanted to see it either. In fact, I think she may be trying to wipe it out of her memory."

"Yes, it was horrible!" agreed Andrew with a shudder. Mostly to himself he mumbled, "in a wonderful, wonderful way."

"What?" demanded Buffy.

"Nothing!" Andrew assured her hastily. "Look, I'm really sorry about, um, walking in on you two earlier."

Her scowl wasn't encouraging.

"I knocked," he defended weakly. "I heard 'come in'—well, that's what it sounded like….I mean, it's not like I've never seen you two do it before…."

Dawn dropped her Vanilla Coke.

"_What?_" said Buffy dangerously.

"You know, we had spycams all over the place," reminded Andrew helpfully. "There was one in your front yard. In this great gnome that I made in pottery class when I was a sophomore."

"In the _front yard?"_ gasped Dawn, making gagging noises as Spike began to howl with laughter.

"My god, didn't you two ever keep your pants up?" demanded Xander, shuddering.

"No!" said Buffy. "—I mean yes! I mean … I kicked the crap out of that gnome, and now I'm extra glad I broke it," she finished, salvaging a measure of triumph out of the humiliating exchange.

"You broke Filbert?" Andrew gasped, looking ridiculously hurt. He'd been spying on them—and it wasn't like he didn't know the gnome was gone; Sunnydale was a fricking hole in the ground.

"Filbert's not the only thing I can kick," she pointed out, and Andrew decided to cut his losses and shut up. He could always install a pottery shed in the yard, or just order more from or something.

Buffy grabbed a beer for Spike and a diet Dr. Pepper for herself and took the chair next to Spike. Dawn giggled but didn't flee. Andrew carefully stared at the ceiling and hummed a little. Xander actually smiled at her.

Spike looked at her with a half-smile playing at his mouth. She smiled back serenely as she slid into her seat.

All things considered, not a bad day.

Giles gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on his research. It was of utmost importance that the demon threatening them be identified, as their situation seemed to be worsening by the moment. And the others were not taking it as seriously as they should; even after the earlier excitement, they were now gathered in the kitchen laughing and joking as if things were perfectly normal. They seemed more preoccupied by their visitors than by the very real danger they were facing.

And as for Buffy.…When she'd let Xander deal with the children's miscreance instead of handling it herself, Giles had been unhappily reminded of her indifference to responsibility when she'd first returned, when she'd expected him to handle everything while she acted as if she were still a carefree teen. He'd thought, finally, that she was beyond that.

Of course, that was before Spike had returned.

A discreet knock at the door did nothing to draw Giles from his gray mood. "Enter."

Wood slipped into the room, thoughtfully shutting the door behind him. If it were one of the others, they probably would have left it open. And possibly tracked in mud.

Yes, it was good to have another adult around.

"A fruitful afternoon?" queried Giles. Perhaps Wood had had better luck.

Wood grimaced. "Not particularly. I keep waiting for things to slide into place, but nothing does. I was thinking maybe it would help to review the basics of shape-shifting demons. Anything you'd recommend?"

Giles turned and surveyed his collection, rubbing his hand across the bridge of his nose, a typical gesture for him when tired. "_Nay's Compendium_ is good for the more fanciful demons. And in the chest over there I've got a _Maleficus Circumundi_—careful, it's old and rather crumbly. I believe we've checked everything that's applicable, though."

"A fresh set of eyes never hurt," said Wood prosaically, moving to the nearest bookcase and running a hand over the ancient texts.

"Indeed."

"You know, Faith thought maybe an incubus, but incubi don't—"

"Of course," cut off Giles a little bitterly, almost to himself. "_Of course _Faith came up with incubus—that's what Spike thought as well. Not surprising that they think along the same lines, don't you think? Peas in a pod."

"I—I don't know what you mean," said Wood slowly.

"I mean they're exactly alike. As horrified as I am by Spike's relationship with Buffy, I have the comfort of knowing it's temporary. He won't stay with her forever—she wouldn't be able to stomach it, and neither would he. Eventually he'll find someone more like him. More like Faith."

The fine hairs on the back of Wood's neck rose; he felt the first chill of warning, but forced it down. Everything in L.A., particularly with the gang at Wolfram & Hart, was so maybe-evil, maybe-good that he was losing his radar. But this was Giles, and he'd always gotten along well with him. He was the most practical of Buffy's circle. They both took the long view on things.

"It really is too bad that our attempt to take care of Spike was unsuccessful," Giles added idly.

Wood ground his teeth. He'd lived that night again and again, and occasionally thought he'd made his peace about it. Mostly he tried not to think about it, because he didn't want to relive how he'd failed.

She'd had a job, and she'd done it. She'd protected him and loved him, but had done her job. She'd worked, every day and every night, to save the world. And as bitter as it felt, he couldn't allow himself the luxury of regretting his failure to kill Spike. His mother had been more devoted to her duty than to anything else, and he couldn't betray her that way. "If it had worked, the First would have won," he reminded Giles. Wasn't like he didn't have to remind himself occasionally. "We would have been defeated if Spike's amulet hadn't activated. If he hadn't been there, we all would have been killed, and the world would have been overrun."

"But you didn't succeed, and we won. It's no longer an issue," said Giles neutrally. "And you know what they say. Third time's the charm."

Wood stopped breathing for a moment. Sure, Giles knew about the second time, when Giles'd distracted Buffy, but Wood had damn well never told him about the incident at the high school when the seal had been activated and was driving the students mad, and in the middle of fighting them off he'd seen his chance and tried to stake Spike—would have, if a crazed student hadn't knocked into him.

He hadn't even told Faith.

"Yeah," Wood said about nothing, turning towards the door. "You know, I think I'm gonna try to catch a shower before din—"

Then Giles's hands were on the back of his neck, the fingers cool and firm, his grip unyielding. Before Wood could make a sound the hands slipped around throat and began to squeeze. "It was worth a try," Giles said pragmatically, his fingers tightening until Wood could only gasp and struggle hopelessly for breath. "Isn't that what humans value? The effort? It doesn't matter, you've always been expendable.

"It will still work out in the end."


	22. Chapter 22

Faith wiped the sweat from her forehead as she left the gym. A fully-loaded gym right in the house—B. had come up in the world. Of course, she'd never really been down in it, but still. No cleaning some gym slob's sweat off the elliptical machine for her.

Faith didn't hear any conversation as she approached the library. Typical; they were both geeks at heart—probably had their noses in a book. Wood was like Giles would have been if Giles had taken a different route home from school one day. If Wood's mother hadn't been a Slayer, he would have been all Giles.

She didn't bother knocking—half the time Wood didn't hear her when she knocked anyway, he was so deep in a book. Besides, who knocked in a library? All people did in a library was read, not get nasty or anything.

Yeah, nothing good ever happened in a library, she thought, snickering to herself as she opened the door. It took her a moment to recognize what she was seeing: Wood on his knees, gasping and trying to pry Giles's hands from around his neck. Then she was across the room, knocking Giles away. Giles struck the wall with a sickening crack, but Faith didn't notice. She dropped down beside Wood, who'd slumped to the floor. He was alive, but struggling for breath, and his eyes were darting around like a crazy person's. Almost getting killed had a way of doing that to you.

"You okay?" Faith demanded roughly. She winced when she heard how sharp her voice was; she'd never been good at the whole tenderness thing. Thank god she was great at the ass-kicking.

Wood opened his mouth and tried to answer, but was only able to make a painful-sounding hiss. He shut his mouth with a snap, frustration and residual panic clear on his face. Finally he just shook his head.

No. No, he wasn't okay.

* * *

It was Dawn who found them. Wood on the floor, Faith bending over him, Giles crumpled and still by the wall. 

Dawn's screams brought the others.

Buffy's first thought, when she saw the tableau, was that it had been Faith. When the choices were a Watcher, a kinda-sorta Watcher, and a girl who occasionally went all psycho killer, it was a pretty reasonable first thought, and Buffy wouldn't apologize for thinking it. She wouldn't be surprised if the others had thought the same thing.

Still, she was kind of relieved that Wood had gasped that Giles had attacked him before anyone had a chance to say anything they might regret.

Except for the part about how it was Giles who'd attacked. That part was like a relief, only the exact opposite.

Buffy knelt beside Giles and gently touched the purple blotch on his forehead. Why would Giles attack anyone, least of all Wood? He _liked _Wood. They both lived for research and the good fight and that kind of thing. And they both hated Spike. Talk about your awesome bonding material.

"Why?" she finally said to the dazed group.

The others turned to look at her. "Why would Giles attack him?"

Nobody could come up with an answer.

"It was the First," rasped Wood, involuntarily pressing a hand to his throat. The others looked at him dubiously.

"The First wasn't corporeal," Willow pointed out.

"But didn't he possess Caleb?" protested Dawn, pleased that her voice was almost steady.

Buffy shook her head. "No, he was just the First's—servant, or priest, or president of his evil fan club or something."

"You think Giles is the new Caleb?" asked Faith skeptically, looking past Wood to Buffy.

Buffy didn't know how to answer. Sudden strength, homicidal instincts? Very un-Giles. But still—

"I got it!" The others swung to Xander, who nodded excitedly."The thaumogenesis demon possessed him, same as it did me and Dawn."

"No," said Wood quietly. "It knew things. Things only the First could know."

"Like what?" Andrew asked quietly.

Wood looked at him coldly and didn't answer, but Andrew didn't quail the way they all probably expected him to. Because he'd dealt with the First more than any of them, and he knew Mr. Giles was too smart to do what it wanted. "Mr. Giles wouldn't help the First," he said. His voice was a little shaky at the beginning, but it was firm by the end.

Buffy looked at him keenly before returning her gaze to her old mentor. He'd disappointed her in ways she'd never imagined back when she was a spoiled teenager. Drugged her, doubted her, left her when she needed him desperately.

And been her father when her own had been indifferent, helped plan her mother's funeral, watched after Dawn after she'd died, risked his life for hers countless times.

"Andrew's right," she said, touching Giles's face gently. "Maybe it _was_ the First, but Giles wasn't cooperating with it. Somehow it did this to him. _Somebody_ did this to him. The First can't do this without somebody helping him. He's found himself a new Caleb."

"So we have to find out who's behind it," Faith pointed out. As if it would be simple.

"Later. Now we have to take care of Giles. Xander?"

Xander moved to the other side of Giles and shuddered. A dark bruise bloomed across Giles's forehead, and the ugly line of his collarbone suggested a break.

Whatever it was, this thing wasn't fooling around.

* * *

"Does your father have a history of seizures?"

"No," Buffy said, shaking her head.

The doctor frowned. "Does he drink?"

"No...ot much," Buffy hedged.

"And you didn't hear him fall, just found him at the bottom of the stairs?"

Buffy nodded miserably. This was why she was so glad she had the Slayer super-healing package working for her; otherwise she'd constantly be giving doctors lame excuses. God, she was a crappy liar. "We didn't hear anything," she assured him, a little relieved she didn't have to lie about that one.

The doctor stared at her without comment, and Buffy began to feel a little uncomfortable. It wasn't like it was her fault! And the doctor was looking at her as if he were thinking she did something to Giles.

"Oh, the _epilepsy!_" said Willow suddenly, drawing their attention. "Dad hasn't had a seizure in so long we'd kind of forgotten about them. I mean, I don't even know if he's still taking his medication. We're, uh … bad daughters."

The doctor grunted and made a notation on Giles's chart. Without another word to Willow or Buffy he resumed his examination. It probably would have been easier if Giles were actually conscious.

Buffy moved over to the side of the examination room and motioned to Willow to follow. It would have been nice to allow Giles some privacy for the exam, but if the First was controlling him she didn't want to leave him alone with the doctor. He might try get away, to kill the doctor, and if he had almost killed Wood, the doctor had no chance. If Faith hadn't gotten there in time, Wood would be dead.

God, what if Faith had decided to spend some more time on the Stairmaster, and it had been Dawn who walked in on them?

"I don't know, Buffy. This doesn't seem like the First to me," Willow murmured. "I mean, why would he do it?"

"Uh, I'm the Slayer? He likes to mess with me. It's his thing."

Willow touched her arm. "Buffy, you're not _the _Slayer, you're _a_ Slayer. And I think he would have an easier time with any of the other Slayers, since they're all brand-new. Well, except for Faith, she's just—" _a recovering crazy person_, Willow finished to herself. No need to say it; she knew she had Faith issues. "They're just learning to deal with this stuff, while you've been doing it for so long. If it really wants to wreak some quality havoc, why did it choose you?"

"Because we're old friends?" suggested Buffy caustically. Willow gave her a dry look, and Buffy shrugged. "I don't know," Buffy admitted. "It's like there's a purpose here—a direction. It's not random."

Willow sighed and looked at Giles, so still in the bed. "No, it's not."

* * *

"You're an idiot," Jenny said, her voice flat with contempt.

Ethan ignored her. It was better that way sometimes. Most of the time, really.

Of course, when she wanted to gain his attention, she was difficult to ignore. And then she _did_ have that little temper….

"You never know when to stop. This is how you get caught. Every. Single. Time."

"It won't hurt just to have a look," argued Ethan glancing at her over in the passenger seat. Wouldn't hurt to lay on the charm a little. Wasn't like the First had it in the last few thousand years; just a little should be plenty.

"Won't it?"

"I don't see what—"

"You have no idea what you're walking into," Jenny said scornfully. "Things haven't—"

"My god, will you give it a rest?" snapped Ethan, thoroughly sick of her constant nagging. Sometimes he wondered if he really wanted to live the rest of his life listening to this shrike—if he'd wanted a damned harridan he would have gotten married, wouldn't he? Before she'd had power beyond measure, but now he was stuck kowtowing to her with no return on his investment at all. If she wasn't good for amusement, she wasn't good for much of anything these days. Now all she could do were parlor tricks.

"You think?" she asked icily, her voice right next to his ear.

He yelped, almost swerving into the next lane before hastily correcting his driving so as not to die. "Don't do that!"

"Have it your way," she said, voice sugary as she settled back into her seat. "This is an excellent plan, very well thought out, and sure to end well."

He opened his mouth to speak, but as usual, she was too quick. "But not for you."

Ethan ignored her. She'd had her time, and look what had happened.

It was really for the best that he was in the driver's seat now.

* * *

Buffy set the glass of water on the nightstand and watched as Giles dutifully swallowed the sleeping pill the doctor had prescribed. She doubted he needed it; he was still pretty groggy. She'd just been relieved when he'd regained consciousness and seemed like standard-issue Giles.

"He doesn't remember anything?" Xander asked softly.

Buffy shook her head. "No. But the doctor said that's consistent with a concussion."

"But he didn't want to keep him overnight?"

"He did a bunch of tests and said it should be okay to let him come home, but to wake him every few hours to check his responses."

They watched as the pill and exhaustion combined to overtake Giles and he drifted off to sleep, his breathing slow and steady.

Giles waited until their footsteps faded down the hall before opening his eyes and removing the sleeping tablet from under his tongue. Insensibility was the absolute last thing he needed at the moment—although if offered he wouldn't have refused a glass of brandy.

He had gone berserk, the others told him. Said things that indicated he was possessed by the First. Struck Faith. Nearly killed Wood.

He remembered none of it.

How had he come to this? He'd always been so careful, the last two decades. His youth had taught him well not to meddle with unknowable forces.

And now, they seemed to be seeking him out.

* * *

"I can't believe you had Cordelia in our room."

Xander froze, his shirt halfway off. "This was never our room," he pointed out carefully, pulling his shirt off and tossing it towards a chair. He missed.

"Semantics," Anya sniffed, wandering over to pick up the shirt. She fussed with it a moment.

"So do you … know what happened tonight? With Giles?"

"Is this a transparent attempt to change the subject? If so, I don't appreciate it. And when I say _is this a transparent attempt_, what I mean is this _is_ a transparent attempt, so stop it right now."

"Jesus, this is more important than _us!_" he exploded.

She froze for a moment, then turned to give him a frosty stare. "Excuse me, _what _did you say?"

"Give it a rest," Xander said hopelessly, crawling into bed and trying to tune her out. She wouldn't stop talking.

She just wouldn't stop.

* * *

Andrew heard Xander's voice as he crept past his room, but resisted the temptation to press his ear to the door. It would be better for the both of them if Andrew didn't try to comfort him in his grief—those things just led to awkwardness afterward. At least that's what he'd been told.

The year before, the First had targeted him, promised him things, tricked him. Made him think he was strong and in control, when it only wanted him because he was weak. Probably it chose him instead of Jonathan because it knew Jonathan would be strong enough to say no.

But Andrew went along with it. The seal had opened because he was weak, and later the seal had closed because he was weak.

But Mr. Giles wasn't weak.

He was one of them now, a Scooby. Just like Jonathan had dreamed of. But Jonathan wasn't around to enjoy it, because of the First. The way the First could get to you—the others didn't understand. No one could if they hadn't felt something older than the Pyramids, maybe older than the dirt it was built from, crawl around in their souls and make itself at home. They couldn't know how terrifying it was.

Or how exhilarating.

Andrew eased opened the door to Giles's room. He was clumsy sometimes, but he could be quiet when he had to. If he hadn't, Tucker would have been all over his flying monkeys and used them as hellhound chow, and Andrew would never have let that happen to his babies.

Giles didn't stir as Andrew knelt beside the bed. He was almost as close to the First, to its unbelievable power, as he had been the year before, close enough to touch Giles and feel the rush of his borrowed power. Close enough to smother him and make sure the First stopped tormenting them.

Andrew shrank back. That was … crazy. Killing Giles wouldn't destroy the First any more than killing the Bringers had. If the First was still in him, a big if, it would just abandon Giles before he died, and disappear into the ether or whatever until it found a new servant. And he made a good argument, so it wasn't like that would take long.

And then the whole thing would start all over again.


	23. Chapter 23

Willow had always loved research. Okay, sure, it could be frustrating, and it didn't always solve anything. And Giles sometimes got a little alpha-researcher, and it didn't help that the Magic Box had blown up with all their books—okay, that _she_ had blown up the Magic Box and all their books—okay, that was totally beside the point. The point was that research was comforting. It was only when she branched out and tried to become an action hero that she'd run into trouble.

She'd gotten past that and was all good-witchy, white-lighty, earth-magicky non-destructo girl now, but research was comforting in a way spells never could be. There was no such thing as overdosing on research, except for the way it made your eyes go wonky and your head hurt. But end-the-world craziness? Big no to that one.

And right now the best thing about research was that when she was doing it, she didn't have to think about Giles sprawled on the library floor, or about the call she'd made earlier to Kennedy's family. She didn't want to think about that one ever again.

Because of the thing with the Magic Box, and then the other thing with the Watchers' compound, they were seriously short on books. But sometimes, in other places in the world, other people knew things. And since she went and activated all the Slayers, they had people all over the world now. And? Some of them were research-friendly, too.

So after all these years, it wasn't just the Scoobies against the world anymore.

Some of the new Slayers were smart. Really smart, like Giles with quads and lats and abs and … more lats? And unlike the Council of Watchers—the old, secretive council, not the new, teeny council—they actually provided help when asked. So she wasn't surprised when one of them emailed her with a recommendation on how to take care of their problem.

She was just surprised at how simple it was.

* * *

"Mr. Gunn?" 

The deferential voice at the door drew Charles away from the briefs in which he'd been absorbed. "Yeah, Scott?" For a moment he wondered how he'd recalled the flunky's name, but the upgrade he'd gotten had all kinds of unexpected components.

"Umm, it's about your client, Mr. Nayer?"

"God, he's not downstairs harassing the secretarial pool again, is he?"

"No, no, that hasn't been a problem since we introduced him to Mr. Yates. This time…it's a little more serious. It's … well … sir, his check bounced."

Now the kid really had Gunn's attention._Bounced_? It took a serious death wish to hand Wolfram & Hart a rubber check. "Have you tried calling him?"

"Yes, sir, but we've been unable to reach him. The guys in Spellcasting said they're not supposed to finish the job until payment goes through."

"So we have a problem."

"Yes, sir."

Gunn considered the situation for a moment. Wolfram & Hart didn't like loose ends. And for a firm that defended so many disgusting lowlifes, it was surprisingly strict about contract law … when it benefited them.

Hell, it wasn't like Nayer wasn't a repulsive waste of skin anyway. "Authorize the usual."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

"You were trying to get rid of me. That's why you had her in here."

Xander opened his eyes and there she was, sitting in the chair in the corner. She was very calm. Why wouldn't she be? She'd had all night to think about it. She'd probably been sitting there for hours, planning her arguments, nursing her anger. Watching him sleep and deciding when it would be most effective to wake him.

He started to apologize. Didn't know why, knew he was supposed to.

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. It doesn't mean anything."

He knew she was lying. If it didn't mean anything she wouldn't be there.

"Not to me," Anya corrected. "You. It means something to you. If it didn't I wouldn't be here. I mean, I'm already dead. I don't know how much more 'getting rid of' there can be."

Xander hesitated. He hadn't asked Cordy to his room. He wasn't trying to get rid of Anya. But just admitting to Cordelia that Anya was haunting him had felt like a betrayal. All this time, all these months, it had been their secret, a confidence kept between him and a shadow. "I wasn't trying to…"

"I've got an idea—why don't you have Willow do that forgetfulness spell from a couple of years ago? That way you wouldn't even have to remember me."

Xander's patience frayed. "Enough!"

The door flew open, and Xander jumped. "Okay, she's here? Where is she?" Cordelia demanded, marching into the room and pushing the door shut behind her.

"Sweet zombie Jesus, stop doing that!"

"What?"

"Scaring me!"

"Scaring you? Excuse me, _you're _the one who walked in on me when I was—"

"What? Innocently going through my closet?"

"Look, bub, I'm trying to _help_ you!"

"Well, I'm doing just fine without your_help_, and if you'd—"

"That's fine, just ignore me. I'm used to it," Anya sniffed.

"I am not ignoring you!" Xander shouted.

"She's over there?" demanded Cordy, looking over at the corner to which Xander had addressed his last remark.

"Of course she's there. She's always there," he said miserably.

The room looked empty to Cordelia. She'd never met a ghost who was so fussy about who she appeared to before. Kind of picky for a spook, as far as Cordy was concerned. "Do you want to get rid of her?"

Xander looked stricken.

"Well, do you just want to go on this way?"

He didn't answer, and Cordelia felt a spurt of anger. What was she, some kind of social worker for demon magnets? If he wanted to wallow in misery that was his problem. She'd tried. She'd tried and she'd never make that mistake with him again.

"Look, if you want to pretend everything's fine, go right ahead. Because plainly, things have been going great around here, what with all the murdering and the haunting and the possession. Far be it from me to interfere with anyone's plan to entomb himself with the ghost of his dead girlfriend, because it's definitely going to work out between you two. So I'll just go, and I hope you and the ghost formerly known as Anya will be very happy together. Congratulations again on throwing your life away."

His face whitened and she felt a nudge of what was probably compassion, but she ignored it because it was completely useless. This whole situation was crap, and pretending it was okay to just ignore it was something a mealy-mouthed so-called nice girl would do. They were all _nice,_ every one of the Scoobies, and that was about as useful as spitting on a forest fire.

But for some reason she expected more from Xander. He might not have super-strength or research power or basic fashion sense, but at least he used to be able to face the truth. And now he was scrambling like hell to hide from it.

Cordelia turned her back to him. Tears were stinging her eyes, sharp and bitter. She couldn't stay like this. She couldn't look at him. She'd been wrong about him for the last time.

A hand closed on her elbow, and she tensed. Xander's voice was hushed, as if he didn't want someone to hear.

"Help me."

* * *

The pain was the first thing that registered. Blooming from the back of his head, pushing its fingers through his brain, making him wish, desperately, that he was still asleep. It was merely one of many reasons he wished he were still unconscious. 

But avoiding problems only served to exacerbate them, and the thought of that made his head hurt worse.

Giles opened his eyes. After the horror of the night before he half-expected to find himself in some parallel world. Instead he was in his perfectly normal room, with perfectly normal sunlight filtering through the curtains, and the highly imperfect sight of Spike sprawled in the chair beside the bed, thumbing through a magazine. "What are you doing in here?"

"Making sure you don't go crazy and ax-murder anyone," Spike returned indolently, barely glancing away from his periodical. "Slayer didn't want you doing any more damage while she was busy."

"She doesn't appear to be concerned about my killing _you_," Giles pointed out. "Then again, perhaps she's considered the possibility and has come to her senses."

"She's got all her senses, thanks. She's particularly sensitive right around her pretty little—"

"All right, all right!" Giles rushed, his stomach turning over. "For pity's sake, can't you at least pretend to be civilized? Just for a change?"

"Why would I do that? She likes a little monster in her man," said Spike absently, flipping through the pages. Abruptly he stopped and looked accusingly at Giles. "You bastard. You right bastard! You did it on purpose!"

"I told you I don't remember anything about last night," Giles reminded him tightly. Which was true, but which provided no comfort.

"I'm not talking about last night, I'm talking about the bloody _league!_ Manchester U won the title back! And you never even mentioned it! What kind of gratitude is that?"

"_Gratitude?_ Why on earth would I be grateful to you?"

"Oh, I don't know, let me think! There's all those times I didn't kill you—when I stopped Angelus from tickling you with a chainsaw—when I didn't rip your head off for siccing the principal on me—when I killed the demon that was going to make chum out of you lot when the Slayer was off killing Adam—when I set fire to that vampire rather than let him have a little snack—"

"Yes, thank you for providing the least amount of assistance possible to prevent Buffy from killing you. I don't know how I ever could have been so ungrateful."

"And there was the part where I died to save the world," Spike pointed out innocently.

Giles gritted his teeth. "Not that I'm not thrilled by your company, but where is Buffy?"

"Busy," Spike grunted, returning to his magazine.

"Well, what about Willow?"

"She's busy, too."

"Everyone's busy?" Giles protested in disgust.

"Yeah, it's a thrillfest for me too. Look, I pulled babysitting duty, so you can just sit tight and play the quiet game until they remember you're up here."

"Easier said than done," Giles muttered bitterly.

Spike's smile was dry. "You're telling me."

* * *

They were staring at her. Willow hated it when they stared at her. Staring was like a more polite way of saying they thought she was nuts. It was a perfectly reasonable plan, formed on a solid basis of … guessing and crossed fingers and advice from a newbie Slayer she'd never actually met? 

"You want to trap it?" Buffy repeated with a faint frown.

"Exactly. Easy-peasy."

"Easy-peasy?" repeated Dawn dubiously. Willow felt a pang; a few years before, Dawn wouldn't have doubted that Willow could come up with a magical solution to any problem. She really was growing up.

"Well, maybe not _easy-peasy_, but pretty easy, yeah. Easy-adjacent," Willow assured them, just a little forced. "Moderate with a really expensive view of easy."

Wood looked puzzled. "If it was so easy to just trap the First, why didn't we do this last year?"

Willow shook her head, stomach churning. "Last year it was really powerful—it had been growing stronger for thousands of years. Now it's weak. It's barely … well, it's not _alive_, per se. More like it just _is. _But after the whole big Sunnydale thing, it's barely an _is._ It's almost a _was._ And it's not like this kind of thing is far out—I mean, it's a classic! Remember how Olaf was trapped in a crystal?" she added to the room at large.

"I remember someone letting him _out_," reminded Xander a little caustically.

Willow winced. Olaf really had never been a good subject to raise with Xander. "But you remember how he was trapped? Same theory."

As if Wood would leave it at that. "Who's—"

"Long story," interrupted Faith, waving her hand.

"You know what happened with Olaf?" asked Willow, puzzled.

"No, I don't know it. I just know it's gonna be long and boring. Sorry," Faith added carelessly.

Willow squirmed a little but didn't protest.

"Could it work for the First?" asked Buffy.

"It worked for a troll god," Willow reminded her.

"And we just … what? Hope we can get the box shut before it escapes?" Xander asked skeptically.

"No, the spell takes care of that. I mean, it would be hard to outrace ephemera. The spell will bind the First it to the vessel. It can't get out unless a counterspell is cast. And not to brag, but someone would have to be really good to break this spell. I mean, I don't want to say _me_-good, but … yeah."

Cordelia shifted in her seat. You'd think they'd actually sit on the furniture before they bought it, but that never seemed to occur to some people. "Uh, in my experience no matter how carefully these things are planned, whatever it is you want to happen always gets screwed up somehow. The royal you, not the you you. If you don't want someone doing a counterspell, it's going to be counterspell city."

"Cordelia … look, you haven't really seen me in action in a long time. I'm really good."

"Will. What if something does go wrong?" Buffy asked quietly.

"It won't."

"If it does."

Willow hesitated. She couldn't make any promises. Magic wasn't mag—okay, it was, but it wasn't perfect. But she was out of answers, Giles was out of commission, and they were out of options. "If it does, we're back where we started. No harm, no foul."

The others glanced around, seeking consensus, but Buffy's eyes remained on Willow, and her voice was steady.

"So why wait?"

* * *

She'd gone over the spell repeatedly. Mostly before she'd even told them about it, because she didn't want to raise their hopes for nothing. She had everything she needed—the spell was a rather basic one; its strength was drawn from her power, rather than the ancillary materials. And her grasp of ancient languages was improving! The words had been spoken, herbs scattered, twigs twisted and burned. 

And the box was empty.

"It worked. I know it worked," Willow insisted, rubbing her forehead, trying to pinpoint where it went wrong. This was impossible—the spell was foolproof.

_You've thought that before_, a little voice whispered to her. She felt incipient panic nudge at her and shoved it down ruthlessly. If she listened to that voice every time it said something she'd spend her life hiding in a closet, curled up in a ball.

"Willow…do you remember when you did that spell to see if I was a potential Slayer?" Dawn asked tentatively. "The spell worked, it just went a little sideways."

Willow didn't seem to hear her. She stared at the spell in front of her, tracing the lines with her finger, shaking her head in frustration. "This is right, I _know_ this is right. I went over the translation again and again, every part of it."

Andrew peered over her shoulder. "Is it supposed to command the First to enter the box specifically? Because I think you messed up your definite and indefinite articles. Proto-Pictish is tricky like that."

Willow gasped and stepped back, her eyes growing large with horror.

"So what does it say?" demanded Xander, his voice edging up.

"Instead of saying to enter _the _vessel meant to hold it, the spell says _a _vessel meant to hold it," Andrew supplied. "That could be anything."

"Or any_one_," added Faith. "But we're all cool?"

For a moment they just all glanced around at each other, taking inventory. Suddenly Buffy muttered a curse and raced from the room. The others could hear her steps as she pounded up the stairs.

"Giles," whispered Willow.


	24. Chapter 24

Buffy was fast. She knew that. Somewhere in the rational part of her brain, she knew that.

But as she raced up the stairs and down the hall, she had the sensation, inescapable and taunting, that she was moving too slowly. She could see herself, as if outside of her body, moving in slow motion, her footfalls a sluggish percussion. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever like a funhouse illusion, Giles's room becoming more distant with every step. Distantly she heard herself breathe—was she gasping for air?—as she pushed herself down the corridor. As the door came closer, finally, impossibly, she realized she had no weapon. It didn't matter. She didn't need one.

She threw the door open, not knowing which of the men she loved she'd have to battle.

"—is not _irony_," Giles said testily.

"Close enough for me," Spike dismissed, not looking up from his magazine.

"No doubt," muttered Giles, looking disgruntled. He caught sight of her in the doorway, and the expression of relief on his face was cartoonish. "Buffy? Oh, thank god. I've had quite enough of Spike for the day."

Buffy leaned against the wall, giddy with relief. When her brain started working again, she'd be upset with Willow. Probably.

"Don't think you're such a prize, Rupert. Wouldn't be up here if the Slayer didn't know how to sweeten the pot. First, she—"

"That's quite enough, thank you," Giles said hurriedly.

There was the pounding of footsteps in the hall, and the others crowded in the doorway. The lack of gore seemed to reassure them.

"So now what?" Buffy asked Willow. "'Cause they both seem very un-Firsty."

Willow peered at the two Englishmen. "Okay, maybe not everything's going according to plan, but it worked, I know it! That box may not have slammed shut on it, but _something _did, I can feel it. The First is contained—we just have to find out where."

"So—ooo….?" Xander prodded.

"Oh! I know just the spell for this!" Willow exclaimed. Behind her someone groaned, but in the interest of harmony she pretended she hadn't heard it.

"Anybody else have an idea?" prompted Cordelia.

"No, it's good! Anya and I did it last year when everybody was invisible. Well, I was invisible too. Well, we were all invisible at different times. I mean, at the same time, but just to each other. Umm, I guess it's hard to explain. It was like—"

"Wait, the rest of you were invisible, not just Buffy? They invisi-rayed people without me?" Andrew demanded, his voice rising in distress as he contemplated the possibility of his former cohorts creating mischief without him.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Nobody was really invisible this time, we just couldn't see each other. And I lost control of my body, and Anya kept posing me like a giant Barbie or something, and finally—"

Cordy wasn't listening. She wasn't even looking at Willow anymore, or Dawn.

She was looking at Xander.

* * *

They didn't notice when Xander left the group. _Did they ever? _wondered Cordelia. The others followed Willow down to the living room as she yammered about spells—_Great choice, guys! Awesome track record!_—and Xander slipped away, silent as a ghost. Drifted off to his room, the one he shared with his dead girlfriend. One day he'd go in there and just never come out.

"No, I didn't know. There was no way I could—sorry. I'm sorry. I just didn't—"

He didn't hear Cordelia open the door and step inside, too busy apologizing to a memory.

"She's not there, Xander. Nobody's there."

Xander turned to look at her, anguish on his face.

She'd tried. She'd tried to believe it was a ghost, that it was anything but what it was. She knew what ghosts were. She'd lived with one; one had done its best to kill her. She'd helped Angel and the others exorcise spirits. And what was haunting Xander was no ghost. Cordelia was too intimately acquainted with death to believe that. She'd spent too much time in the shadow world between life and death to be that naïve.

"Yes, she is. She's right there, same as always," he returned, his voice hopeless.

"She's nothing. She's an illusion—_delusion," _corrected Cordelia.

"Are you going to let her talk about me that way?" demanded Anya, hands on her hips and outrage on her face. "I shouldn't even be surprised, should I? Typical."

"She's dead and gone. She can't do anything to you if you don't let her."

"She's right there," he repeated.

Cordy was silent a long moment. She couldn't do this for Xander. No one could do it except him. "What does she want?"

Xander dropped his eyes, staring at the carpet. "She never tells me."

"Then guess."

"To punish me. Why else?"

"Why would she want to punish you?"

"For ruining her life. For lying to her. For humiliating her in front of all her friends and my family and everybody, and making people pity her, and leaving her there in her wedding dress to explain it all to everybody by herself. I should have done it, I should have done it. She'd still be here if I had."

"That's completely true," Anya assured him from her favorite spot in the corner. "I'm glad you finally realize that."

"So breaking up with her made the First go all apocalyptic and decide to end the Slayer line?"

"Don't be ridiculous—"

"Oh, you mean marrying you would have made her impervious to nutjobs with swords?"

Xander stared at her in disbelief. "God, what's wrong with you? Who _says_ things like that?"

"People who know you're talking crazy, that's who! I mean, are you _listening_ to yourself? You should have been a martyr and married her because if you had, of course she wouldn't have died in a battle so huge it destroyed a hellmouth? Are you serious? You were twenty years old! You didn't get cold feet, you came to your senses! Getting engaged so young—what were you trying to do, ruin you life?"

"It—it seemed like the next step—"

"To what? 1952?"

"Well, no, I—"

"Why did you break it off?"

He was silent for a long moment, but she wouldn't look away, that steady demanding gaze, and finally he cracked. "I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"What do you think?! That I'd be like my dad. That we'd have the exact same life my parents did."

"So, the same thing you've always been afraid of?"

Xander flinched at her casualness. "Yeah. But more. Worse. There was a demon, and it gave me a vision of the future. It was—" he broke off. "Maybe it was a lie. Maybe not. It was close enough that it didn't really matter."

"So you didn't just check your horoscope and decide not to get married? You had actual reasons?"

Xander shut his eyes and saw it like it was yesterday. The bitter arguments, the venomous undercurrents, the miserable children. The report of the skillet against Anya's head. "God, yes."

"Then it wasn't a mistake, was it?"

He didn't speak for a long time, didn't even think. He couldn't think about it any more; he'd thought about it for the last year. It was all he thought about. "It wasn't a mistake," he whispered finally. "I loved her, but it wasn't a mistake."

Anya got up from her chair in the corner walked over to stand in front of Xander. "Excuse me? What did you just say?" She put her hands on her hips, drawing his eyes to the damp-looking streak of blood across her blouse.

Xander shut his eyes tightly. Of all her guises, this was the one he hated most. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. But it wasn't a mistake." He braced himself for her inevitable rage, but she was silent.

When he opened his eyes to apologize again, she was gone.

* * *

The map was huge, tracking the entire city and its outskirts. If the First had really been trapped, it should be in the area the spell covered. Willow didn't want to risk using a more localized map and possibly just miss where it was being contained, because it was essential that they reach it before someone else stumbled upon it. That would be—okay, that would be something she _really_ didn't want to think about. She cast the locator spell, held her breath for a moment—and sat back in puzzlement. The results were a little, uh, unexpected. Well, a lot unexpected. In fact, she was pretty sure she heard Buffy mutter "this can't be right" under her breath as she went to check it out.

"The First is in the backyard?" asked Dawn dubiously.

"Wait, could the shed be 'a vessel meant to hold it'?" suggested Andrew.

"Not unless 'it' is a lawnmower," countered Dawn.

"Well, what else is in the backyard?" probed Wood.

"There's a gazebo, but I don't think it could _hold_ anything," Andrew said doubtfully. "I mean, it's just a couple of pillars and a roof."

"Why are we talking about this?" protested Faith, uncoiling herself from the couch and heading towards the back of the house.

Wood flushed. "What she said," he mumbled, following Faith sheepishly. He was usually alpha in a relationship, but Faith had that covered. Ultra-covered. It was still taking some getting used to, actually.

"Goddammit!"

Wood hurried across the yard to see Buffy drag something from behind a hydrangea bush.

"What is it?" called Faith, running towards her.

Buffy closed her eyes in disgust. "A pain in my ass."

* * *

They didn't need Spike now. Dawn had come up to take over with Rupert, and a few words with Buffy had gotten Spike up to speed on the results of the locator spell. She had everything under control nicely, so Spike took the opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge.

He stepped out onto the back porch, sucking the foam off a Tsing-Tso leftover from a few days before. Needed some time alone, he did, after babysitting the Watcher all morning and looking at Wood, the bruises around his throat reminding Spike of the bruises he'd put on the throat of the man's mother. Which was normal, and understandable. He was a vampire, she was a Slayer. He was just doing his job. Doing it very well. Exceptionally well. And relishing every minute of it.

It hadn't been personal, dammit. He'd been a _vampire_; what else was he supposed to do?

Vaguely he remembered his first Slayer saying something after he'd drained her, and for the first time wondered what it was. Probably cursed his existence, or her bad luck. He was still wet behind the ears and crazed with excitement at his newfound power, and if not for the distraction of the war raging around them she might well have ended him.

Instead his victory had made him ascendant as one of the most feared vampires of modern times, a slayer of Slayers, outshining his sire and grandsire, who relished easy victories. Her blood had been not merely an aphrodisiac but an addiction. Drusilla loved the sweet fear of children; Angelus luxuriated in despoiling the innocence of holy sisters. For Spike, it was the exhilaration of besting his equal, the one designed to destroy him, that electrified him. Who could blame him? What better could be expected of him? He'd done what he was created to do, no more. No one turned rose as anything except a monster. That was all they were made to be.

He'd defied his world, his every impulse and teaching, to seek his soul. He'd received it as a reward, but it was the most perfect punishment he could ever imagine. Despite the miseries he'd inflicted, he could do no more.

"Mind some company?"

Spike glanced up to see Xander, pulling the cap off his own bottle.

He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't want to stay for the big scene?" Personally, Spike thought it best just to let the Slayer have at it. She didn't need him for this, and he was feeling a mite queasy anyway. If she needed him she'd call, and if she didn't, he might have a nice peaceful evening of drinking himself into a stupor.

"Kinda feeling scened-out for the day."

"Yeah. Know the feeling."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, staring into the distance as the sky began to drag into dusk. Eventually Xander stirred himself enough to speak. "Ever feel like there was someone there staring at you all disapproving, reminding you of everything you've done wrong, every stupid thing you've ever said, until you're ready to blow your brains out?"

Spike gritted his teeth for a moment and wondered if Harris was starting to develop ESP. If he wanted to share, now would be the time to tell the boy about Wood's mother. Bonding experience and all that. Might be nice to get it off his chest, and—oh, bugger that. He might be human now, and he and Harris might not hate each other anymore, but he was damned if he was going to turn into a little girlie at a tea party. "Unreasonable guilt. Heard humans suffer from it."

Xander wasn't really listening anyway. "And then someone gives you a slap in the face, and suddenly the world makes sense again? Well, not _sense_, it's still the world, but suddenly things aren't that bad. The world is the world again."

Spike looked at him, skeptical and just a little hopeful. "You think so?"

The look he received back was calm. Clear. "Yeah."

* * *

Dawn was helping. Trying to help. Not trying to jolt his shattered collarbone as she assisted him downstairs, babbling about how "super pissed" Buffy was and for Giles to get downstairs immediately. He was relieved at the possible progress with their situation, deeply so, but as he felt as if his collarbone was re-breaking with every step, he also wondered if this momentous revelation couldn't have taken place in his room, which held both a bed and large bottle of Vicodin.

_Yes, that's right. Because that attitude is quite the thing coming from someone who just tried to kill one of them. Excellent job, Rupert. Nicely done._

Then he saw the figure stirring on the couch, just regaining consciousness. "Dear god," he whispered.

Even dazed, Ethan could manage a malicious smile. "I must say, Rupert, you look appealingly helpless. Did you know I was coming?"


End file.
